What are we talking about today?

I'll get back to theme days once I find a groove of posting regularly. In the meantime, most of my posts are about some variation of books, bikes, buses, or Broadway. Plus bits about writing, nonprofits, and grief from time to time.

This blog is mostly lighthearted and pretty silly. It's not about the terrible things happening in the world, but please know that I'm not ignoring those things. I just generally don't write about them here.

21 October 2011

The Future is Today!

So today's green living tip is a little bit cheating and a lot born out of my frustration with having to tear down half a forest all by myself just to get through a couple years of school. And it is:

I still like this, too, but I'm a bit
stingy with it. Source.
Do as much as you can electronically.

I love the instructors who ask for homework electronically. I even more love instructors who assign books that are available as e-books so I don't have to pay for shipping. I am so enamoured with people who don't require me to print things.

This is not an anti-book or anti-paper post, btw, but just a reminder that services like Google Docs and email attachments and Kindle for PC might save you a bit of cash on paper and ink while also keeping trees in the ground. And I'm all in favour of that, because I live in Austin and think any part of the city without shade is doing it wrong.

Are you a teacher who assigns (at least some) homework electronically? Do you avoid printing things? Should I go around Austin in the dead of night planting trees?

8 comments:

J E Fritz said...

When I think of all the trees I must have used up during school...I better come help you plant trees during the dead of night.

a runners' life said...

Electronic homework is definitely the way to go. I really liked submitting assignments electronically - although I do think they printed it at the other which really didn't save any trees - it did save me a bit of cash though.

With books and reading material I'm old fashioned though, I need to be able to touch, flick through the pages and highlight when necesary.

Great work with doing the green thing!

a runners' life said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Su said...

@JE: It's like breaking the law, but nicely!!

@Runner: I have the same problem... some of my instructors just print it at the other end. :/ I'm on the fence about e-readers, though. I love physical books, but can't carry 2000 of them in my pocket. Right now, I'm going with 'both'. :)

Karen M. Peterson said...

As the person at work who is responsible for filling the student printer with paper, it drives me CRAZY to see how much stuff gets printed. Papers they have to turn in. Articles they just need to read for research. It's ridiculous and makes me sad.

And I don't even consider myself an environmentalist.

Su said...

Every time I have to print an article, I feel guilty. At least with homework I'm sharing the guilt with my prof, but if I can't read something electronically or in a book, I almost always don't use it in my research.

Grahame said...

There are a lot more trees around now than there were a couple hundred years ago, because people don't have to use cords and cords of wood to heat their houses/cook with all the time.

I bought a plastic sleeve to put worksheets in so that my daughter can use a dry-erase marker and do them over and over instead of me having to print out bunches of worksheets every week.

Su said...

Good point re: heating. I'm just not wild about being personally responsible for using more paper than necessary.

And, as ever, what a genius idea!