Sustainable Living

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1Summary 重點摘要

Sustainable development meets today's needs without robbing future generations of theirs. Practise the 4Rs — reduce, reuse, recycle, replace — plus saving water and power and green shopping, and everyone can live sustainably.

2Vocabulary cards Vocabulary

3Step by step Steps

1. Step 1: See why sustainability mattersExample: the Earth's resources are like a bank account with a fixed balance — humanity spends far more each year than the planet can renew, so the account keeps overdrawing and future generations will not have enough left. Sustainable living means meeting today's needs without damaging the ability of the next generation to meet theirs. Once we understand this, we also understand the meaning behind the 4R actions. Scientists compute Earth Overshoot Day every year: from that date humanity is drawing on next year's resources; it has crept forward to late July or early August — the deeper the overdraft, the sharper the warning to change how we live.
2. Step 2: Practise reduceExample: bringing your own bottle when buying drinks saves hundreds of plastic bottles a year; bring your own shopping bag and refuse over-packaged goods. Reduce is the most effective of the 4Rs, because things we never buy create no rubbish to handle in the first place. Thinking before consuming whether we truly need something cuts waste at the source, which is easier than recycling afterwards. Remember the order of the 4Rs when answering: reduce comes first — nothing made means nothing to waste; reuse is next; recycle comes last, for collection still spends energy and transport.
3. Step 3: Practise reuseExample: wash and donate old school uniforms so younger children can wear them; use cartons to store stationery; return glass bottles to shops for refilling. Every extra use of an item means one less piece of rubbish and saves the resources that making a new one would cost. Reuse needs no high technology, only a little thought: when something breaks, first think whether it can be repaired, then whether it can be given away. Schools are good places for reuse, too: second-hand book sales, toy swaps and a shared stationery corner all squeeze full value from things; one swap event alone saves a whole batch of rubbish.
4. Step 4: Practise recycleExample: rinse and sort waste paper, aluminium cans and plastic bottles, then put them into the right recycling bins. Recycling one tonne of paper spares about seventeen trees, and recycling aluminium cans uses far less energy than smelting new aluminium from ore. Rinsing items before recycling gives better-quality products and keeps one dirty item from spoiling a whole batch. Recycling turns rubbish back into raw material, letting resources keep circulating in society. A common mistake is dropping greasy food boxes straight into recycling bins: unwashed items contaminate a whole batch into waste; the right way is to rinse them clean and drain them first.
5. Step 5: Practise replaceExample: replace disposable plastic tableware with washable eco-friendly sets, tissues with handkerchiefs, and disposable batteries with rechargeable ones — greener choices taking the place of old habits. The key to replacing is habit: keep the eco-friendly set in your schoolbag and it will naturally be used when buying drinks. One small replacement, kept up year after year, cuts a large amount of disposable waste. Try the sums: one pair of disposable chopsticks each lunch over some one hundred and ninety school days a year makes nearly two hundred pairs; carry one washable pair and thousands are spared over a few years — a striking difference.
6. Step 6: Save water and powerExample: a five-minute shower saves tens of litres of water compared with a bath, and turning off the tap while brushing teeth saves a little more every day. For electricity, choose air conditioners and fridges with a grade-1 energy label, switch to LED lights and set cooling at twenty-five to twenty-six degrees, and both the bill and the carbon emissions fall together. Saving water and power needs no special equipment, only small daily habits. Check the figures: an ordinary shower head releases about eight to ten litres a minute, so a five-minute shower already uses forty to fifty; two minutes shorter and a family of four saves sixty to eighty litres a day.
7. Step 7: Handle food waste and shop greenExample: fruit peels and vegetable scraps can be turned into small home compost in a corner of the home for growing flowers and vegetables, so the food waste is no longer rubbish; serve only as much rice as you can eat to cut leftovers. Before shopping, ask yourself 'do I really need it?', and prefer local seasonal produce, which travels a shorter way and creates fewer emissions. Green spending votes money for Earth-friendly products and pushes businesses to change. When shopping, watch for eco-labels such as packaging marked with recycled material; by spending on responsible businesses we push the market towards more green products, and a virtuous circle begins.

4Diagrams Diagrams

5Worked example Example

6Common mistakes Mistakes

7Quick check Quick check

8Recap Recap

• Sustainable development meets today's needs without stealing from future generations.
• The 4R order — reduce, reuse, recycle, replace — with reduction at the source the most effective.
• Save water and power with small habits: shower instead of bath, grade-1 appliances, lights off when leaving.
• Food waste is about 30 percent of Hong Kong's rubbish; cut it first, then recycle into compost or energy.
• Green consumption buys what is needed — simply packaged, durable and local seasonal products.