Abu Dhabi: A little effort in saving the planet goes a long way, as two pupils passionate about the environment explained following a ceremony held on Monday, honouring organisations and entities that supported the Environment Agency-Abu Dhabi's (EAD) Paper-Less Day 2010 efforts.
"At the beginning, everybody was asking us ‘how do you go paperless for a whole day?'" Ashwathi Pavithral, 17, who goes to the Abu Dhabi Indian School said, commenting on the initiative, which was first launched in 2008. The aim of the day is to minimise paper use in the UAE. The effort has come to include 141 organisations and 126,756 individuals both in the UAE and the Arab world.
Endorsing the campaign for their first year, Pavithral and her fellow pupils were keen on spreading awareness about the programme both inside their community and beyond their school as well. As well as telling pupils and staff about Paper-Less Day and explaining its goals, e-mails were sent to parents so they could carry out environmentally-friendly practices in their workplaces, Pavithral explained.
Reducing consumption
"The campaign was a success, we managed to reduce our paper usage from 21 reams of paper to 1.3 instead," she added.
Pupils hope to enhance their efforts to include other environmental aspects, including water usage and electricity consumption, Shreya Agarwal, 18, said.
"Now in school, during the morning time, we try not to turn on the lights in the classroom unless it is absolutely necessary. We also turn off lights we don't need in the corridors, for example," Agarwal said.
"Our school is very supportive of our efforts. At the beginning of the new school year, we will be using the web to get circulars, worksheets and our grades, as opposed to using physical copies," she added.
All efforts taken by individuals count toward making a global difference, Pavithral reiterated.
Save planet: Tips to cut usage
- Read your newspapers online
- Reduce your use of tissue paper
- Think before you print
- Use both sides of every sheet of paper
Follow the 3 Rs: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
- Buy paper that is FSC-certified or is sourced from sustainable forests
- Use the fit-to-page features (such as in Microsoft Excel) to reduce printing
- Send faxes electronically
- Switch to recycled paper
- Tell your family and friends about the need to reduce paper consumption
— Source: EAD
What do you do to save paper? Do you have any tips on how to reduce the number of papers used on a daily basis? Are people not bothered when it comes to saving paper?
