By Hamda AlHashemi (@Hamda_AlHashemi)
In the words of Mohandas Gandhi, “There is a sufficiency in the world for man’s need but not for man’s greed.” Why did that man say those words of gold? It is because he actually tried living while using the things he “needs”, and not the things he “wants”. Earth is our home and what we are doing is destroying it by abusing its resources; and what is to become of a man who destroys his home with his own hands other than devastation?
According to the Gulf News, the UAE has one of the largest footprints in the world and a carbon footprint that is approximately 9.3 global hectares. Although it has reduced, there is still a significant imbalance. When we eat more than we should, our body becomes heavy and we do not feel very well. Little by little, our over consumption of food, natural resources, and our waste generation harms our environment and the effects are more noticeable day by day.
The international INDEX 2011 Student Challenge had a wonderful theme this year; reusing waste material and turning it into something that can be benefited from greatly. It could be as simple as using plastic bottle caps to create a table or using egg cartons to make a partition. These simple solutions save us a lot of time and energy and can create a magnificent difference in the long term.
The Dornob Design archive features wonderful ideas on how useless things that we use daily can become very useful. One of the examples was using broken glass from bottles to create furniture surfaces and kitchenware; a beautiful detailed mosaic, when brought together, all it needs is a minimal amount of effort.
Creating eco friendly products has become more and more common by the day. It has become so popular that even the fashion industry became interested. Lisa Fredrika Aslunds took scraps of wood from construction sites and arranged them intelligently as pumps for broken heels.
The thing about us is that we are too lazy. It takes a little bit of creativity to come up with brilliant ideas on how we can use things that we no longer need instead of throwing them away. Creating something from nothing is not only environmentally friendly, but it will also spark that feeling of achievement. It is only a matter of time before you notice how talented you have become.
Fortunately, there have been several initiatives in the Emirates that encourage environmental preservation. Examples on that are the Arena and Estedama in Abu Dhabi. Although these initiatives are on a large scale, we as individuals still need to do our part. Simple decisions that do not require that much effort, one person inspiring the other, it is a step-by-step process.
The longer we spend to make that decision the worse it gets. Nature provides a free lunch, but only if we control our appetites, (William Ruckelshaus, Business Week, 18 June 1990). Unlike other living things, we as human beings have a privilege that is a brain. We make our decisions, and we deal with the consequences. So what decision are you going to make?
Sail eMagazine’s 20th Issue – November 2011
Here we start – Art of Living 101 – Beyond Inspiration
Blunders of a Wannabe Entrepreneur – Just Another Undergrad – Society of Tomorrow
Too Blunt for Words – To The Point – Words, Observations, and Ramblings
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Nice post as usual, well to be honest I can have multiple uses of a single item like a ruler, I can't count the number of things I can make a ruler useful however as you described the problem is we are lazy and I have to admit that I am extremely lazy or extremely focused on saving my time (Most likely not the last). In addition to laziness problem we have another problem it's the selfishness of human beings. For example, in addition to my laziness I am selfish, I prefer reading books instead of using my creativity to please others. Maybe this selfishness is derived from the fact that I am having a short life and I don't know where I am heading in the end.
Great post as usual, keep writing
Amazing article!
I currently work at DUBAL & just today have discussed in a meeting on ways to reduce our Carbon footprint. I agree that we need to all work together as a whole on this, & elhamdillah am doing my part to make sure this initiative stays alive.
The things is, we can make beautiful things using waste materials and not only use them for us at home, why not try and sell them? Especially if its widely available we'll be hitting two birds with one stone.
I was looking at the different projects that reuse elements for design purposes and came across the Ubuntu Restaurant, which looked spectacular and inspired me to use some of those ideas in my own house. It's a very important topic that people need to consider thoroughly.
I've been to the INDEX fair and I loved the some of the ideas i saw, like the suitcase chair and the small table made of rope. In fact I tried doing some of those things at home. I think that competitions and exhibitions like that will inspire indviduals to be more involved with recycling and reusing materials since not everyone has an artistic or a creative sense.
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