Earth Day has come and gone, but that doesn't mean every day isn't a good opportunity to treat our earth like a queen. Earth Day is always a nice reminder that we should be nicer to our home planet, but this reminder tends to be short lived. There are a lot of simple ways to recycle and conserve energy that won't change your life at all. It's 2018! We should all be better at doing our part to reduce our carbon footprint. As college students living on our own for the first time we have more responsibility in what we do. Here's a reminder of what you can do to be better for mother nature:

1) Ditch the straw.

Next time you're at Sykes or any other sit-in restaurant, ditch the straw and lid. They really aren't necessary plus using a straw will give you bad lip wrinkles when you're older, so win for you and win for the planet.

2) Buy a reusable straw.

If you really can't ditch using a straw, no problem, just invest in a reusable one! There are six packs of crazy straws at the dollar store, so no excuses.

3) Cute, reusable water bottles.

There are swell bottles basically everywhere you go and they come in every shape and size. Not to mentions dozens of different websites where you can order and customize your own water bottles. Then there's stickers to put on them! The water bottle would basically turn out as a fun accessory.

4) Turn off the lights (use more candles!).

Unless you're doing homework or something else that requires good lighting, you can take the opportunity to turn off the lights and light up some candles! You can make your room smell good in the process and use less unnecessary energy. Need another method to get lighting? Well...

5) Open your windows.

Get some natural lighting and some natural air flow. This time of year is perfect to get a cool breeze in the room so you don't have to use the air conditioning so much.

6) The old turn-off-the-water-when-you-brush trick.

You've heard it a million times but its still a tried-and-true method to save water.

7) Say no to plastic bags.

If you're a student, chances are you have a backpack attached to you 99 percent of the time. Don't bother with the plastic bags.

8) Bye-bye paper receipts.

A lot of places offer emailing receipts now instead of a paper copy. It might take an extra minute to fill out your email, but then you wont be bothered with the lengths of unnecessary paper.

9) Recycle the right way.

Either some worker will have to dig through the recycling to pick out the trash you absent-mindedly threw in the recycling or the whole bin will go to waste. Don't be the person that screws everything up just because you were too lazy to find a trash can.

It's on us to help make the earth a cleaner place, and although these small changes don't seem like they'll make much of a difference, they do add up. If you went and did the math you would be overwhelmed by the amount of energy, plastic, and water you could save by just slightly altering your behavior. Get your friends on board and you can make the numbers double. Earth Day has passed but that doesn't mean it's okay to forget about our home planet and how important it is to keep her healthy even if its just by forgoeing the straw next time you're out.