Earth Day started on April 22, 1970, to demonstrate support for environmental protection. Following the massive oil spill in Santa Barbara in 1969, Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin wanted to teach the youth about the importance of air and water pollution. Earth Day is now a global movement recognized as a day of action to change human behavior and create global, national, and local policy changes. This year's theme is to invest in our planet, preserve and protect our health, families, and livelihoods. This century's goal is to "reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century to keep the global temperature below 1.5°C." (earthday.org)
#didyouknow April 22 was chosen for maximum student participation as it fell between spring break and final exams.
Our planet has seen profound changes in the environment in the past 50 years. Over time we have learned the positive and negative effects of our actions. The good news is that every little change we make helps for a greener future.
How is SpecialEyes environmentally friendly?
As a Florida-based company, we are conscious of how our business affects the community and the environment. Today, our manufacturing plant utilizes solar power, which is not too surprising from the Sunshine State. Additionally, our manufacturer uses natural gas to get up to 200kw of clean power for their turbines. Last, the plant will use waste heat to get up to 45 tonnes of air conditioning.
At SpecialEyes, we actively recycle the cardboard and plastic that comes into our office. We will, most of the time, repurpose the cardboard boxes that come in. If we cannot repurpose the cardboard boxes, we recycle them properly for our state. Additionally, we offer water coolers in the office so employees can refill their water bottles instead of using single-use plastic bottles.
While we have room for improvement in becoming more environmentally friendly, we are happy to have started the process. It is one of the most important aspects of becoming more environmentally friendly: you don't have to be perfect, you just have to start.
How can your practice become more environmentally friendly?
Some small steps you can take to make your practice more environmentally friendly:
- Implement a water fountain or filtered water system to eliminate the use of single plastic water bottles.
- Offer a paperless option for your patients. While this will require some setup on the backend digitally, it will pay off in the decrease of supplies needed for printing.
- Reuse cardboard boxes that come into the office.
Again we stress that you don't have to be perfect; you just have to start. We would love to hear the steps you took this year to become more environmentally friendly.