Ball State University freshman Sasha Niese, an entrepreneurship major, said she attended the Living Lightly fair to earn extra credit for her English 103 class but left wanting to do more to help the environment.
"We only get one Earth, and we need to take care of it," Niese said. "Not doing that, it's just going to make life a lot harder. Even though it's easy right now, if we keep doing this, it's not going to be as easy."
Niese said she wants to start recycling more and try to turn off the lights in her room when she's not using them.
Living Lightly took place from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday at Minnetrista. Visitors were shaded from the hot sun by three large, white tents at Minnetrista's front entrance. More than 50 vendors set up booths along the sides of the open-air tents, and fairgoers moved from one table to the next to learn about sustainable practices and to mingle with friends.
Niese said some of the vendors opened her eyes to new "green" products.
"I learned that a lot of things can be better for the environment than what you would think," Niese said. "Like countertops, I didn't know that could be eco-friendly, so that kind of surprised me."
Sophomore ecology major Derek Hobbs, who volunteered at The Hoosier Environmental Council's booth, said raising awareness for environmental issues helps individuals learn they can make a difference.
Hobbs said he uses compact fluorescent light bulbs to help reduce his apartment's electric bill.
"We also use power strips, and we shut those off at night or when not in use, and that helps stop the vampire drain," he said.
Vampire drain refers to the electricity that is still drained from one's electrical appliances when they are turned off but still plugged into the wall, he said. Hobbs said his electricity bill is about $25 per month.
Lina Gordy, secretary for the Smart Living Project, used her booth to promote the Smart Living Project, a local nonprofit organization that was started about two years ago to educate the community about sustainable lifestyles.
There are many "little things" students can do to live more sustainably, such as line-drying laundry, turning off the lights when leaving a room and using cloth shopping bags instead of plastic ones, Gordy said.
Ball State senior Cody Thompson, who worked at Living Lightly to help promote his Business Fellows project, said students who live off campus can recycle by getting blue bags at local grocery stores or the Fickle Peach bar. People can put their recycling - unsorted - into the blue bags and place them in the dumpster, and the Muncie Sanitary District will sort the trash for them.
Traci Lutton, a volunteer for the Smart Living Project, said she was amazed at how simple it was to use the blue bags.
"The first time I put that blue bag in my toter [trash can], I thought, 'Wow, this is easy. Why didn't I start doing this a long time ago?'" Lutton said.
Vendor Wayne Blevins, owner of Sertech and Solartech, sold solar-powered water heaters at his booth. The heaters' "tube-in-a-tube" system traps solar energy in a black tube, which is surrounded by another clear tube to create a greenhouse effect, Blevins said. Water pipes are run through the solar heater to use the energy, he said.
It is important to educate people about solar energy because it is essentially a free energy, he said.
"Solar energy is a type of fuel that's reusable because it's something that we always have," Blevins said. "If we can harness it to a point that we can use it 24/7, then we feel that we can make an impact on fuel cost."
Cars could run on solar energy if humans learned how to harness heat like they harness electricity; then heat could be carried as a fuel cell, he added.
Gordy, who helped organize Living Lightly last year, said she was impressed with this year's fair.
"I think [the fair] was great last year, but it's even better this year," Gordy said. "I love the venue; it's great. There are a lot of people; we've had steady traffic all day ... I think it's a huge success."
Dave Ring, an organic farmer who was a featured speaker and served organic lunch at Living Lightly, said he also noticed an increase in the number of people who attended the fair this year.
"It's been a big year for sustainability, and I think that people have started to pay attention to that," Ring said. "So when the word got put out about this, I think that people showed up more in droves."
Did you know
- Household cleaning products can be eco-friendly too. Natural cleaners are safer because they are toxin free, Living Lightly vendor and Ball State alumnus Mike Feagans said. Natural cleaners are also more concentrated, so consumers buy fewer bottles, which means less waste, he said.
- For more information, visit his Web site at www.shaklee.net/feagans
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