What CAN one student do?

This started out as an essay to sweet-talk Chegg out of a $500 scholarship, but as my train of thought kept rolling, I realized that these thoughts were too compelling (to me, anyway) to keep between me and the judges at Chegg.
Keep in mind, the wording of this piece was comprimised by the 500-word limit on the essay contest. I felt a little cheated--limits always have that effect on me--by a few things that I didn't get to expound on. Personally, I feel that anyone who asks a writer or speech-maker to "keep it short" is cheating themselves.
But enough feeling sorry for those judges (and...okay...myself). What follows is the final draft of my response to Chegg's little brain-jogger: "What can one student do to help the environment?"

While I realize the importance of a group to accomplish very time- and energy-consuming goals, I also believe in the power of the individual to have an impact on the world around them...even the entire world. Like a single grain of sand will never fill a glass, a couple hundred thousand could. The responsibility of the individual to improve the environment (or any aspect of life, be it environmental, cultural, etc.) cannot be shrugged off as "someone else's problem". When enough people count on "someone else", there won't be anyone else to count on. On the positive reverse, every person who does choose to take responsiblity for change in their own capacity can count on every other responsible person to help them accomplish it on an even greater scale than they ever could alone.
Just as every single person can contribute to a great cumulative change, every single positive thing a person does not only helps them contribute to that change, but will have a greater impact on that person's own life. Most "green" habits that people pick up to help the environment also happen to help them.
There are many environmentally-friendly decisions that improve the decider's health. Walking to a nearby friend's house or store keeps you in shape and the air a little cleaner. Going vegetarian cuts your risk of cardiovascular disease, several types of cancer, digestive problems and bone disease. Chemicals in household cleaners not only poison the environment, but the person using them, and everyone else who lives in the house. The meat industry pollutes our soil and water with pesticides and hormones (put into the animals' food and passed through their digestive systems and into the ground and the water supply), and our air with methane gas. It's an argument that appeals to the latent selfishness in anyone...especially anyone who "just doesn't feel like" changing their habits to save the environment: Everything that harms the environment you live in will end up harming you. That same logic appeals to the unselfish as well. Everything that helps the environment will not only help you, but everyone else who shares this world with you.
"Going green" doesn't just improve your health, but your finances as well. To call compact flourescent lightbulbs, solar panels and hybrid cars "expensive" is shortsighted. With energy costs skyrocketing, not making these changes is far more expensive.
Even small changes to your daily routine can have some positive impact. Such effortless motions as turning off the tap while you brush your teeth, turning over a piece of paper to write a list, picking a plastic bag or Arizona tea can up off the sidewalk and putting it in a trash can, and even flicking off a light switch in an empty room you pass by can help.
Protecting the environment is not someone else's problem. It's everyone's problem, and everyone's responsibility to solve it.

Yech.... I know a lot of high-school teachers and English classmates who would be impressed by this. Maybe I've just got impossibly high standards for my own writing. But for a paragraph tapped into a blank on an entry form.... (here I sigh loudly and rest the back of my hand on my forehead) I suppose it will have to do.