The Power is Yours.

Paper or plastic? How about neither.

Paper has to be made from our trees, uses four times more energy to produce than plastic bags and takes just as long to break down in landfills if not recycled. Plastic is made from non-renewable resources and only 3% are even recycled, those not recycled take anywhere from 20-1000 years to decompose. The moral of the story you may ask? Simple, bring in your own reusable bag when going shopping. Okay, so I know it seems a bit dorky, but there is nothing dorky about saving the planet! (Yes, I went there.)

Besides carrying around a reusable bag with you to every shopping establishment I’ve got some better  and less obvious alternatives to help save our world that even us small college students can do to help make a difference.

One: turn off your laptop at night. You’re not going to be skyping or writing thesis papers in your sleep so turn it off. You’ll save around 40 watt-hours per day and almost $15 dollars a year.

Two:  instead of buying a “disposable” lighter to light your candles, or god forbid your cancer fix, use cardboard matches. The cardboard is made from recycled paper whereas the lighter uses that awful plastic stuff we talked about earlier, as well as butane, which are both from non-renewable sources.

Three:  use cotton swabs made from paper, not plastic. Are you sensing a theme here? Plastic is never a good choice and in this case if only 10% of U.S. households switched the estimated petroleum energy saved each year would be equivalent 150,000 gallons of gasoline.

Four: ditch the plastic coffee stirrers and straws with your morning fix. Each year Americans throw away over 138 billion of the things. If you are a Starbucks fan they are smart enough to offer wooden stirrers but if not, get the coffee added in after the sugar and creamer to allow it to mix itself.

Five: Last but not least, use one less napkin a day. It sounds a bit basic I know, but if everyone in the U.S. used just one less paper square a day over one billion pounds can be kept out of our landfills each year.

Since we all can’t join Captain Planet and become a Planeteer take some of these ideas into consideration. “The power is yours.”

Looking for more ways to help save the world? Check it out.

Going All Natural

Beetle juice. Beetle juice. Beetle juice! Don’t worry your Starbucks barista will know what you mean.

Recently the mega coffee corporation has come under fire for using crushed Peruvian cochineal  beetle bugs to create the red food coloring in several items from their strawberry frappuccino to the red velvet whoopee pie.  Vegans and vegetarians are crying out, stating that now many drinks can no longer be an option due to the crushed insects and Starbucks’ statement that they could not guarantee that there would not be cross-contamination.

Just today Starbucks released yet another statement concerning the backlash, stating they will reconsider the ingredient. But is this little bug really a big deal?

The red dye that comes from the cochineal bug is found in more items that you might think. Enjoy cranberry juice? Wear virtually any shade of red lipstick? Or maybe you just like strawberry yogurt? Then you’ve experienced this natural additive. Yum.

Unfortunately, bugs aren’t the only natural additive that has made its way into our everyday products. Don’t worry; you should be safe with a nice veggie laden sandwich. Wrong. L-cysteine, commonly found in breads, pastries and pizza dough, is derived from a natural protein source we are all familiar with- human hair.

That must be what Weezy meant when he said “long hair, don’t care.”

But don’t despair; being natural isn’t limited to what you eat. Ambergris, a wale stomach excrement, is commonly used in perfumes to help the scent last longer. So if you love Chanel No. 5 then you are truly one with the environment.

Before I really freak you out and force you to a life of fasting, realize that these additives are FDA safe and have been used for many years before anyone actually knew how innovative and disgusting we could be. Just know that natural additives can be as weird as those manufactured ones.