Ok, this is quite obvious and I know what you are thinking… but did you know… even though water covers over 70% of the world’s surfaces, only 2.5% of that water is freshwater (the one we drink). The rest is saltwater which you can find in the oceans around us but the amount of freshwater that we have is very limited. From that 2.5% of the Freshwater, we only have access to 1% as the rest is trapped in glaciers and snowfields. So to help the world save the little fresh water we have, we have suggestions on how to save water in many different ways.

• Take Shorter Showers
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  • Take a shower instead of a bath. According to Waterfootprint.com, a bath is between 35-50 gallons, and a shower with a low flow showerhead only uses 25 gallons for every 10 minutes. (Side Note: Try using a low flow showerhead and clean yourself as quickly as possible to reduce water waste)

• Concerned about Hygiene?
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  • Though hygiene is a good thing to have, on average a human only needs to take a shower every other day. Take body rinses instead. When using shampoo, turn off the water as you are not using it. 

• Taking Baths?
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  • If you really don’t like taking showers and prefer to take a bath then one way of reducing water waste would be to fill up the tub only part of the way instead of all the way. Still, baths take up a lot of excess water that you do not really need. Try to minimize how many times you take a bath a week. 

• Brushing Teeth
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  • When brushing your teeth, turning the sink off is another way to help reduce water wasted. Many people let the water run as they are brushing their teeth because they think they need the water for rinsing later on. Really, if you just turned off the water when you are not using it, it wouldn’t be that hard to turn it back on in about 30 seconds. 

• How Much Water Do You Waste?
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  • Find out how much water you and your family use a day with this: Water Footprint Calculator

Our lack of energy conservation is sadly a huge problem in the pollution of this planet. While this would not be a hard task for anyone, it may be hard to grasp the habit of doing the action. Many of us were taught to remember to turn off the lights before we leave the room, but it would be surprising that not a lot of people do that. According to Lisa Montgomery, 90 percent of parents claimed that someone leaves the light on somewhere in the house everyday. This is obviously a huge percentage. Now be honest with yourself, do you ever forget to turn off the lights? Everyone makes that mistake every once in a while, but essentially we should learn to develop a habit in learning to conserve energy. 

• Turn off the lights

• When you leave a room, turn off lights to save energy. This step should be easy and simple. After you use the restroom, remember to turn off the lights. Especially if it is in your house, do the favor of helping your parents save money on electricity bills while saving the planet. 
• Think before you do!

• This applies to as little as opening the fridge only if you know what you are getting. When you open your fridge, you will realize that there is a light that turns on. This contributes to the continuous problem of the world. The longer you open your fridge, the more you are harming the earth. 
• Take advantage of the sun!

• We are all super blessed to still feel the heat of the sun and get natural light from the sun peaking through our homes. Use the natural light from the sun instead of the lights from the house throughout the day. Dry your clothes outside in the sun instead of using a dryer. Hand Washing and drying your clothes outside would help preserve your clothes and make it longer lasting. You would also avoid the worry of your clothes shrinking in the dryer. 
• Live in the moment.

• Instead of watching TV all day, try picking up a book and read for an hour. Go outside and hang out with your friends. Play ball with your neighbors. Being constantly on mobile devices would drain the battery and also strain your eyes. Both are serious problems in affecting the world and your health. The more you charge your phone, the more your parents have to pay. The more you stare at your phone, the more your eyes will become strained. Give yourself a break and enjoy life in its presence. 

Only if we had the ability to teleport to places we want to be, then we wouldn’t have to find transportation. Sadly, we have no other choice but to use transportation. When using any vehicles that require gas such as cars, buses, etc., we are contributing to destroying the planet. These vehicles release hydrocarbon and nitrogen oxides into our environment which increases our ground level ozone. This is really bad for our health and possible future. To help minimize this, we provided some suggestions on how to avoid contributing to these problems. 

• Walk!!
  • Walking may not be your first option but when you think of the alternatives which is driving in a car or public transportation, the emission rates are very different and the benefit of you walking is also good for health reasons. Take time to walk with your friends or family home one day. It may be a fun activity for you guys. 

• Bike!!
  • Same with walking, biking is an easy way to get to your destination without having the emission of you taking a vehicle of some sort. Bikes can be used if you have to go to a place that is further than walking distance. Again, biking is also a health benefit.

• Take the bus!
  • Although taking the bus, trains or transportation that is similar to that isn’t completely getting rid of emissions, it is still good because it limits the emissions while using something that a lot of other people use. Imagine if each person on the bus drove their own car instead… This would mean the increase of chemicals from cars would increase tremendously. 

• Carpool!!
  • A thing that a lot of people do is tell their friends and family that they should meet somewhere. Instead of doing that, you can offer to pick up your friends or family from where they are and only go in one car. Doing this, you would save a lot of money on gas. You guys can also jam out to music together as you arrive at your location.

By suggesting you guys to reduce, reuse, AND recycle, what we mean is minimalize what you use. Everyone has a hard time doing this, especially when we are forced to buy our essentials (toilet paper, utensils, clothes, food, etc.) that are wrapped in unnecessary plastic. We can’t help it, but to buy it because we NEED it. But there are always small steps we can take to reduce our use of excessive things we do not need. 

How long do you think this world we live in would last? Do you think your grandchildren would be alive, but suffering from our destruction of the planet? As you might have heard on the news, the many disasters happening around the world are due to climate change. For instance, the recent deadly fires in Australia were fuelled by extreme heat, severe drought and strong winds. We are constantly harming the environment and in return, the planet reacts and puts our lives in danger. Though we cannot save the entire world and reverse the damages, we can take small steps to delay the failure of the Earth’s health. On the bright side, we are extremely lucky to be living in this world with not so obvious effects near us. To continue this, we provided you guys with tips and tricks that would be an easy first step into forming habits and helping the environment. 

From Team AAK (Adrian, Arturo, and Kelsey):