Though your teenage years may seem like a real mix of pleasure and pain (and they are), this is still a unique time in your life. Deciding what goes into your time capsule gives you an excuse to examine your present life for a minute and take note of what's in it, for better or for worse. Years later, when you find these things again, you'll be grateful for the prearranged wacky trip down memory lane. And if you never do dig it up yourself, think how cool it would be for someone from the future to find it thousands of years from now and wonder what a Wii remote is.
About the Contributors
Steven Jenkins is a San Francisco-based cultural critic whose writings on film, music, art, and literature appear in national periodicals, exhibition catalogs, and artist monographs. He is the editor of City Slivers and Fresh Kills: The Films of Gordon Matta-Clark and Model Culture: James Casebere, Photographs 1975–1996.
Erika Stalder is a San Francisco-based writer who has contributed to Wired and Edutopia magazines and worked with the International Museum of Women to produce the Imagining Ourselves anthology. She also wrote Zest Books' The Date Book: A Teen Girl's Complete Guide to Going Out With Someone New.
Zest Books would like to extend special thanks to our copy editor, Pennie Rossini, and the following friends who helped us to research this book:
Julia Brashares
Deb Burkman
Jonathan Chaet
Arne Johnson
Jorge Kobe
Erin Garner
Barbara Gatti
Pamela King
Rob Larsen
Keith Macklin
Frances Matthew
Nick and Teresa Morisco
Michael Read
Eric Rorer
Andie Savard
Lesley Schwartz
Bill Stalder
Jo Stalder
If you liked 97 Things to Do Before You Finish High School: Steven Jenkins and Erika Stalder, you might also like 47 Things You Can Do For the Environment by Lexi Petronis with environmental consultant Jill Buck, founder of Go Green Initiative.
You know the planet is in trouble. Everywhere you go, people are talking about how air pollution is causing the earth's climate to change, how logging and oil-drilling are ruining natural habitats, and how trash is overflowing into our waterways. It's a bit of a mess. But the question is: What can you do about it?
The good news is: a lot! Don't worry—you don't have to build a car that runs onvegetable oil or head to South America to save the rainforests to make a difference. You just have to get informed and make small changes. Decisions to shop, drive, and party differently can greatly benefit the earth's health. In this book, you'll learn how to:
host a "qreen" film festival
plan an environmentally friendly date
shop vintage, local, and organic
create an environmental task force
recycle or reuse justabout everything
Today's teens will inherit the planet. If real change is going to happen, it has to start with you.
Keep reading to preview a sample of 47 Things You Can Do For the Environment by Lexi Petronis with environmental consultant Jill Buck, founder of Go Green Initiative...
ONE: At Home 47 Things You Can Do
1 Get a Clean Shave
Shaving is a big deal. For guys, the first shave is a whole rite of passage, signifying the transformation from boy to man. And the way guys grow out their facial hair, from goatee to sideburns, is a big part of expressing their personality. For girls, shaving means the difference between wearing that new skirt or throwing on those old jeans again. And when bikini time comes around, it’s like half of a girl’s beauty regimen! But shaving also takes its toll on the environment. That doesn’t mean you should become a hairy-legged hippie chick or a bristly mountain man. Just take your hair removal to a greener level.
How to Do It
A lot of people use disposable razors when they shave — you know the kind that you use for a week or two and then have to throw away because they are all nasty and dull? Most disposable razors are not recyclable. You might think that the number of razors per year that you go through is insignificant, but it is estimated that about 2 billion disposable razors are thrown away every year in the US. The best and easiest alternative to all of this waste is to buy a long-lasting permanent razor with refillable blades. And depending on how much your razor and blades cost, this move may also save you some money over time.
Extra Tips
Sharpen refillable blades with a razor sharpener, which can significantly reduce the number of blades you use.
Use soap and water instead of shaving cream; soap comes with less packaging, and shaving cream containers are not always easy to recycle.
Consider buying 100 percent recycled and recyclable razors.
A Sweet Way to Remove It
It’s hard to decide what the most ecological form of hair removal is because so little research has been done on the environmental effects of things like waxing and depilatories. Both do employ the use of potentially toxic substances (especially depilatories), but there’s still no conclusive evidence that suggests those substances are hurting our environment. Still, for a natural alternative, give body sugaring a try. It’s like waxing, except you can use a natural mixture of sugar, water, and lemon. Look online for a complete recipe.
2 Put the Spin Cycle on Pause
Stop throwing your clothes into the hamper. That isn’t to say you should throw them on the floor — the laundry lords in your house definitely wouldn’t appreciate that. But not every item of clothing that you wear needs to get washed every time you wear it.
Washing just one load of laundry in a standard top-loading washing machine consumes about 40 gallons of water, so the less laundry you do, the better. Besides, washing less often will actually benefit some of your clothes.
Jeans, for instance, will last longer if you wash them less. Of course, no one’s saying you have to go around wrinkly and stinky. Luckily, there are alternatives to washing that still keep your clothes looking (and smelling!) fresh.
How to Do It
To cut down on all that laundering, you need to extend the “clean” life of your clothes. The number one rule to remember: Hang everything up after taking it off (including pants). Letting used clothes air out for a bit helps to keep them fresh; when they’re all smooshed up in a pile, they get wrinkled and smelly. You can also wear clothing that doesn’t have direct contact with your skin — like sweaters or jackets — again and again, unless you accidentally dropped a plate of spaghetti down the front. And use the same towel for an entire week, if not longer. Your body is clean when it gets out of the shower!
When you do get mustard on your shirt or a little blood on your collar from shaving, hand wash the spot with cold water. You’ll avoid throwing the whole piece of clothing into the wash again (and have a better chance of getting the stain out).
Only run the washer when you’ve got a full load of clothes. That means you may have to include laundry from other members of your family to get a full load of whites, but a little teamwork and collaboration can keep your laundry eco-friendly.
Finally, if there are one or two items of clothing you want to wash, there’s no need to do an entire load. Just wash those items by hand and hang them to dry.
At the Laundromat
If you help your parents take clothes to a laundromat, help them choose one with front-loading washers; they tumble clothes through a smaller pool of water (up to 50 percent less or 20 gallons less!).
3 Get Shower Power
The average American uses 80 to 100 gallons of water per day. To really process that, imagine emptying 100 1-gallon cartons of milk into an enormous bucket. That’s a lot of H2O! So, why should you care? One reason is that it takes a serious amount of energy to replenish, pump, and clean our water.
But there’s also only so much water in the world. If we use up or pollute water at a speedier rate than it’s being replenished, we’re in trouble. T
he United States, unlike many countries, is lucky enough to have clean, running water, but it won’t always be like that if we don’t get wise and start conserving. In fact, due to population growth, global warming, and overconsumption, we may be facing the possibility of a serious water shortage in the next few years if we don’t do something about it. There are so many easy ways to conserve water, and you can start in the shower.
How to Do It
1. Shower with a water-saving showerhead (instead of bathing in a tub). If you compare the amount of water used in a 10-minute shower (as little as 20 gallons, if using a water-saving shower head) versus that used in a bath (up to 70 gallons in a conventional bath tub), it’s easy to see why showering is the champ in this department. But make sure you have a water-saving showerhead! Old-school, conventional showerheads can waste as much water as a bath, depending on how long your showers last.
2. Shower just once a day. If you typically take two showers, cutting back to one per day could save thousands of gallons of water a year. Whether you shower in the morning to wake up or at night to clean up after soccer practice is up to you. And use bar soap instead of liquid soap — no bottles to throw away!
3. Wash your hair every other day. Do you have long hair? If so, washing it can add five minutes (at least 10 gallons of water) on to your shower every day. Washing your tresses less not only cuts down water consumption, but also protects the natural oils in your scalp.
4. Talk to your parents about energy-saving water heaters. Sure, you’re probably not making any of the big financial decisions in your family, but if you make a big enough stink about our planetary needs, your folks will eventually start to listen (see pages 26–28).
Take a Green Bath
Sometimes we really need a bath. Maybe we are nursing an injury, or feeling grumpy, or just trying to beat cold winter blues. A bath once in a while is OK, if you’re careful about not wasting water. Just fill the tub level high enough to cover you and keep you warm.
4 Color Your Hair Green
This doesn’t mean literally dyeing your hair green — unless you want to. It simply means dyeing your hair in an eco-friendly way. Hair-dyeing is fun and can be the quickest, most dramatic way to achieve a new look. And, unlike some other methods of changing your look (like, say, getting a tattoo), the process is easy and painless, and the results are temporary.
But the problem is that most hair dye contains synthetic chemicals, and those have to go somewhere when you’re done with them. The unused stuff from the kit (like the plastic gloves and the containers) goes into landfills where the chemicals can seep into the earth and taint the soil. The chemicals can also be harmful to your head — we’re talking about scalp irritation, flaking, or even an itchy allergic reaction, called dermatitis. Whether you’re going red, black, or violet, it’s best to be green about it.
How to Do It
At home: Some herbal experts recommend tinting your hair with natural juices or teas — chamomile tea and lemons can brighten up blondes, while beet juice rinses add a hint of color to brunettes. Head to the health food store (check online for the closest one), where you can find hair coloring products that feature plant-derived or other natural ingredients, or look online for high-quality henna hair dyes, which are natural, and free of synthetic chemicals. The downside is that plant dyes don’t last as long as the synthetic kinds, and they don’t come in the same kinds of bold colors.
If you use any kind of dye with chemicals in it, you will have to properly dispose of the excess dye, bottles, and contaminated gloves, which some cities even consider a household hazardous waste. To get rid of it, see if your area has a special trash collection day where workers pick up household hazardous waste, or take it to a household hazardous waste facility yourself (see your city’s website or visit earth911.com to find local places to go). You can also check with local hair salons to see what they do with their used dyes.
At the salon: Find a salon that aims to be environmentally friendly. Most salons use dyes made with toxic stuff — in abundance, but some greener salons use organic, plant-derived, and cruelty-free products as often as possible. Call local salons to see who’s greenest. If there’s an Aveda salon near you, that’s a good bet. Aveda’s demi-permanent (meaning it eventually washes out) dyes are made of 99 percent plant ingredients and their permanent dyes are made of more than 90 percent plant-derived ingredients.
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