By Sr Del Kang

“The Lord’s is the earth and all its fullness, the world and all its people.  It is He who set it on the seas; on the waters He made it firm.” Psalm 24:1-2

We thank God for the beautiful world we live in and for all that He has put into our earth for our use. The Earth is the only planet that supports life.  It is the only one where life as we know it can exist. Wherever we are, each one of us occupies a small space in the world, the place we call earth. Like a fish in the water that does not know it is in an ocean, we are on earth and often do not think about the Earth we live in.

The Earth provides us with so much, with all that we need.  But sadly many people, even us, take it for granted and sometimes abuse it.  We use more than we need, waste lots and even exploit the gifts of the earth. We now realise that many things we do contribute to climate change which harms the environment and other life forms causing wide spread destruction to our earth.

Each one of us can help by doing the 3 Rs … to reduce, reuse and recycle. 

Here are some practical things we can do:-

• We have the recycle bins: Put your drink cartons, plastic bottles, aluminium cans, dry paper, cardboards, unwanted books, newspapers into the right bin for recycling.
• Be considerate and do not put food bits, wet tissues, wet stuffs or dirty objects into the recycle bins but put them into the rubbish bins not outside or around them.
• Switch off the lights, fans, air conditioners when you leave a room. When you use a small corner or space in a room, switch on only the lights/fans for that area and not all the fans and lights that are meant for the whole room.  Regulate your air conditioners to 25 degrees Centigrade when you use them at home or in school.  On cooler days (November, December, January), open your windows for fresh air when you sleep.  Give your air conditioners a break even on rainy days which are often windy.
• Do not keep your fridges open for a long time. Decide what you want to take from it beforehand.
• Do not leave your computers, televisions and other electrical appliances on for long periods of time when you are not using them.
• When printing or duplicating papers, print on both sides and print only what you need.
• When using paper napkins, paper towels or tissues, use one sheet. There is no need to pull out a few sheets.  We do not have giant hands.

Do Not Waste Water and Food

Though we are blessed with an abundance of water and food, it does not mean that we could waste.  Cutting down wastage helps our environment.

• Turn off the tap as soon as you finish your washing.
• Avoid talking to people while you are washing your hands or utensils … more water than you know runs into the drain.
• Shorten your shower by one minute or two.
• Wash your clothes in a machine only when you have a full load.
• When you drink from a bottled water, finish it up and recycle the bottle.
• Avoid turning on the tap to a full blast. Besides getting splashed, more than 50% of the flowing water get wasted.

A gentle flowing tap from a half opened tap does a better job and help save our precious resources.  Do your part to cut down wastage of food.  While millions of people are hungry, we are throwing away food that turn into toxins that pollute our Earth.

End Plastic Pollution

• Use your own water bottle and remember not to leave it behind at the places you go to.
• Use your own reusable shopping bags.
• Use our Foundress Day tote bag for your shopping and to carry your things instead of taking and using bags from the supermarkets and shops. Use this bag often and remember that we can do our part to help save our world.

Our earth is God’s wonderful gift to us and we show our appreciation by loving it, respecting it while we live in it. We need to have compassion even for our Earth.

Every single person is responsible to do our part to save our Earth from further destruction.

Did You Know?

• A glass bottle can take up to 40,000 years to decompose if it is not recycled
• Plastic bottles take over 500 years to decompose
• By turning off your computer instead of leaving it in sleep mode, you can save 40 watt hours a day
• Half a million trees have to be cut down just to produce the Sunday papers each week.
• When newspapers are recycled, it takes only 7 days for it to become a brand new newspaper.
• Our school uses over 100 reams of paper for printing each week.
• Recycling a single aluminium can saves enough electricity to power a TV for 3 hours. If you throw away that aluminium can, it will stay in that form for up to 500 years or more.
• 20 recycled aluminium cans can be made with the energy it takes to manufacture one new one.
• Every 2 minutes you save on your shower can save 38 litres (10 gallons) of water
• Singapore used 3 billion plastic bags a year (2007 stats) and the amount of food waste generated in 2016 was 791,000 tonnes – equivalent to the weight of more than 3,500 MRT trains.

Let us seriously do our part to Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Refuse what we do not really need.

Think of some ways you would like to show your appreciation for our Earth.

Let us remind and encourage each other to do our part.