Eco-Friendly Vacations

By Marcell, Jessica, Devin, and Lily Jessica: With the approaching stress, pressure and excruciating, endless pain only known as exam time, Im sure every single one of us are eagerly counting down the days until summer. And what better way to spend your summer than to relax, have fun, and go on vacation? Just imagine yourself flying over the Pacific ocean, tanning by the beach, pigging out on room service in a 5 star hotel, and maxing your credit card on souveniers and exotic goods. Yup, sure sounds amazing. But all these extravagant features take a massive amount of energy and resources. And while were enjoying it all, our environment isnt doing so well. Lily: While you are sitting comfortably on your seat on the plane, waiting to get to your destination, have you ever wondered just how much energy the plane uses to fly? On average, about 4 tons of CO2 is produced by a commercial aircraft for every flight over 5 hours. 600 million tons of CO2 is produced by all 16,000 commercial aircrafts every year. That alone, is worth 10% of the total CO2 emission caused by humans every year. It is estimated within 15 years, the use of air travel would double, meaning the CO2 would increase to 1.2 billion tons of CO2 produced by planes per year. Many studies have shown that by 2020, air travel will become one of the greatest emitters of CO2, leading to a rise in global temperature and sea level, flooding many beautiful islands and coasts. Marcell: Vacation and tourism also produces a large amount of waste, garbage and pollution. In places with lots of tourist activities and local attractions, waste disposal is a serious problem and improper disposal can be a major despoiler of the natural environment such as the rivers, lakes, and natural vegetation. Tourism usually overuses water resources carelessly for hotels, swimming pools, and many other uses. It is estimated that a large hotel disposes about 8 tons of water everyday, and cruise ships in the Caribbean produces more than 70,000 tons of waste each year. The wastewater and sewage caused by vacations and tourism are polluting the rivers, lakes and oceans. The polluted water will damage the flora and natural vegetations, and will threaten the health of animals. Devin: In addition the tourism has physically impacted the environment. During the development of the hotels and facilities, often lands are cleared and constructions are making long-term changes to the natural surroundings. Many different resorts and facilities are required to clear cut forests, and the lack of trees in the local ecosystem will lead to erosion and destruction of natural habitat that are home to thousands of different species. Many tourists enjoy getting to know the local wildlife, and wildlife watching/viewing activities can bring stress and pressure into them, and causing them to alter their natural behavior, especially if tourists come too close to them. This causes the species to be a lot more watchful and they are feeding less. These behavioral problems can disturb the reproduction and endanger them. Jessica: And heres the million dollar question. How can we help? Well ladies and gentlemen, this is where I present to you the concept of green travel. Green travel, it sounds like an oxymoron, but it is possible to greatly reduce ones impact on the environment when traveling. When youre plan-

ning a vacation, the first thing that comes to mind is usually booking a hotel. But hotels, in general, is one of the greatest energy-wasting factor when it comes to traveling. The next time youre planning on staying at a hotel, heres a few tips that could keep your stay both fun, relaxing, and ecofriendly. Try staying at eco-friendly hotels instead, they use 40% less energy and 35% less CO2 than normal buildings. Take personal toiletries, rechargeable batteries and shorter showers at hotels. Also refrain from taking the sample shampoos and lotion that they usually offer. Reuse towels and linens if youre staying for more than one day, and if your room isnt TOO messy, tell the maid to take a break from cleaning your room. Some of these options might seem excessive or unnecessary, but when it comes to saving our environment, every little thing counts! Marcell: During vacations many people dont turn off all their technologies and appliances at home, and this only adds more to their carbon footprint. Turning off all appliances while you are away for a while is one of the simplest ways to reduce the amount energy and CO2 produced. Turning off the refrigerator is a great opportunity to empty it and clean out the frost built-up in the freezer, because it uses more energy when there is frost in the freezer. Even if you are gone for a short period of time, you can change the thermal settings of the fridge and freezer to save energy. It is also a good idea to unplug all appliances such as computers and TV. Turn off all heating or cooling systems as well. Another way to reduce the amount of waste is to book flights online. This not only saves energy and time for the tourists from paper work, it also saves paper and reduce the associate of CO2. While you are booking flights online, try to avoid stopovers, as planes take the most energy when theyre taking off or landing. While packing, pack as lightly as possible, to reduce the amount of fuel needed for take off and landing. Lily: Transportation, it is the leading factor of air pollution in America, and causes 1/2 of the carbon monoxide, over 1/3 of the nitrogen oxides, and almost 1/4 of the hydrocarbons in the atmosphere in 2006. But, there are many ways for us to reduce the amount of waste and CO2. Airplanes uses loads of fuel during take off and landing and one of the easiest ways to reduce the used energy is by booking direct flight. And just doing so, you can save over 30,000 lb of fuel. A second way to reduce the amount of fuel is to take a vacation with public transportations, such as trains and buses. Though they still produce waste and CO2, it is at a much lower altitude and is a lot less harmful compare to airplanes, where the negative effects are 3 times more serious. Another way to be more eco-friendly is to drive energy efficient cars or car pool, and during vacation, it is best to rent a hybrid car, in order to lower the carbon emission. And results have shown that they produce over 30% less emission than a normal car. In addition to renting a car during vacation, it is also a good idea to try bike-sharing. Bike-sharing is when people leave used bikes at a bike using station, so other people may use them. The bike-sharing system is used all over Europe, and it not only saves money, it also causes no damage to the atmosphere or the local natural vegetation. There are also some other ways to reduce your ecological footprint, another option is to calculate the amount of carbon emission in your vacation plans so you may take the greenest route possible. Of course not everyone is going to pick up their calculator and do the math to see which route is the most ecofriendliest, but there are other solutions to it. You can always go on a green tour to places like Costa Rica to minimize environmental impact and support local sustainable culture. Or you can have local vacations or low-carbon vacations close to home, where you can travel on public transportations to reduce the carbon emission. Another option is to have alternative transportations instead of flight, such as hiking and kayaking, this option

produces no CO2 or any other form of pollution. As you can see, there are many options for more eco-friendly ways of traveling and transportations. Devin: When you go on your ten thousand dollar vacation you fly in a plane then take a limo to your hotel get into your air-conditioned room with a TV and plugs for your electronics. It sounds nice but is that what going on vacation is really about? I thought going on a vacation was about getting away from regular life. Not going back home just somewhere hot with beaches. Instead, why not go to a place with huts things like, surfing, rafting, hiking, and much more. If you choose to go camping, make sure youre protecting the camping water sources from contamination by never washing dishes, clothes or yourself in them. And make sure to thouroughly clean up your campground before you leave, and try to leave as less of a mark as possible. All of these are such fun and recreational activities, which really get you to centre with your true nature loving self. Not to mention get an experience you will never forget. For instance what are you more likely to remember? The time you stayed in your hotel room, watched TV, and ordered room service, or the time you went white water rafting in Brazil or down the Grand Canyon! Really if you take it into perspective its so much more worth it to put time into planning a fun ECO ADVENTURE! then to go on your next super overpriced trip which is basically just staying in your home on a beach. Think about your options next time you book a trip. Marcell: You might be tempted to try out exotic, local dishes but make sure that the ingredients are, in fact from the area. Not only will this cut down on emissions from transporting the food, but it will also mean that you are supporting the local economy. Talk to the manager about their transportation, too. Trains are (usually) better for the environment, while trucks guzzle gas and the creation of roads usually involves chopping down huge numbers of trees and the destruction of precious aquatic ecosystems. Jessica: Overall, there are a variety of ways for us reduce our ecological footprint during vacations, and most of them take little to no effort to be done. There are many different ways for us to travel without harming the environment, and in the end, by preserving the environment we are also benefiting ourselves and our desire to experience the nature and all the it offers. There are a lot of ways we can help save the environment while still having the time of our lives, all it takes is a simple decision and a will to act upon it. Thank you!!!!