Reducing one's ecofootprint

As you can see, decreasing your environmental impact is not easy, but it can be fun! Many of the suggestions from the NIW guide are not that hard to follow and can be completed with little effort throughout the day. Reducing one's ecofootprint is essential if we want to move towards living sustainable lives. Here are some of the easiest ways to decrease one's ecofootprint:

1.Turn off the lights when you leave the room. They don't need to be on anyway!

2.Use reusable water bottles. Please learn from my mistake and don't buy a new plastic bottle

everyday. There's absolutely no point to it.

3.Try to only wash your clothes in full loads. Smaller loads use the same amount of water as larger loads, so try to fit everything into one load.

4. Unplug things that you use only once a day, such as coffee makers and toasters. While

plugged in they suck electricity even when not in use.

5. Walk, bike, run. Anything that involves exercise and doesn't involve transportation that

would increase pollution.

By following these easy steps, you can decrease your ecofootprint and feel happier, healthier, and better about the environment at the same time!

Minimizing resource use

I used a blog for this project for many reasons. First, blogs decrease resource use by eliminating the need to print off paper or use tape and other physical resources that will only be thrown away once the project is graded. As long as the teacher grading the project is able to access the internet, no resources need to be wasted. Second, blogs allow for pictures to be displayed that can visually demonstrate the suggestions in the NIW guide. Hopefully, others will be able to see my pictures and replicate them to decrease their impact as well. Third, since blogs are on the computer, people who are reading them can multitask and reduce the overall energy exerted. Finally, blogs are very wide-reaching. People around the world can access a blog as long as they have internet. It is my wish that others will be able to access this blog and decrease their impact on the environment.

Recycling newspaper

Most people get the newspaper delivered to their homes every morning. While it is important to be updated on the daily news, newspapers quickly overstay their welcome. As the papers pile up, people begin to look for a way to get rid of them. Recycling newspapers is a critical action that everyone should take part in. It's an easy way to get rid of bothersome newspapers and it impacts the earth much less that simply throwing the paper away.

Dad jumps in!

Feeling left out, my dad asked me how he could help with this project. I told him that the easiest way would be to decrease his use of cars. He promised to reduce his car use. True to his word, that night he walked home from work. I quickly snapped this shot before he arrived to document his assistance.

My freshman year of high school I went to a school that allowed students to purchase lunch from a buffet. Every day at lunch I would buy a brand new bottle of water. At the end of the day I would dispose of the water bottle, usually in a recycling bin but sometimes just in the trash! In many ways, this was my greatest regret of freshman year. During No Impact Week, I chose to use a reusable water bottle that I brought with me to school every day. I decreased my production of plastic bottle waste and still got my water fix.

Printing on the back of paper

As a junior in high school, there are many assignments for me to complete. While most teachers want assignments typed, there's no reason for an assignment to only cover one side of a piece of paper. Paper has two sides for a reason. USE BOTH. After printing out a sheet, put it back into the printer with the type facing up and print on both sides of the sheet. This decreases waste by decreasing the amount of paper that you use.

Mom helps out again

After helping me out that first time with the lunch box, my mom got so into NO Impact week that she wanted to help some more! She followed one of the suggestions on the guide and took reusable utensils to work to eat her lunch with. Taking reusable utensils can decrease one's impact by decreasing disposable waste in the form of plastic utensils and only requiring minimal water to reuse.

Dry erase To-Do list

Some people would call me obsessive, others OCD. The way that I help to relax my obsessiveness is to make lists of things to do. In the past I have written my lists on little post-it notes and left them around the house. The NIW guide gave me the idea to make a huge to-do list on a dry-erase board that I would use to reduce waste and get my obsessive fix at the same time.

Less impact busing!

Another easy way to decrease one's impact that is not often remembered is to ride the city bus. This decreases gasoline use and carbon dioxide emission by serving as a medium of mass transport.

Raggedy rags

I realized halfway through the project just how many paper towels I used in one day. The number was ridiculous, so I decided to switch to a rag when cleaning my counters. The rag was reusable, and while I could not bring myself to use a rag for a napkin, I did not mind using one to clean counters.

Mom gets in on the NO impact week action!

Since part of the requirement for the project was to get family participation, my mom agreed to help me out. She usually brings paper-bag lunches to work, increasing her waste everyday by throwing the bag away. I convinced her to bring a lunch box to work instead of a paper bag. This would decrease her waste because she could reuse the lunch box. She borrowed my camera and got one of her coworkers to take this picture with the lunch box in the bottom left corner.

Turning off the faucet

Perhaps the easiest of the suggestions from the NIW guide was to turn off the water when brushing my teeth. Keeping the water running when you brush your teeth wastes water and doesn't serve any useful purpose at all. Turning the faucet off is quick and easy and saves water.

Biking to school

The first suggestion that I followed from the NIW guide was to decrease my car use. I thought that the best way to do this was to bike to school one day (Wednesday). I usually drive to school, which increases carbon dioxide emissions and wastes unnecessary gas. By biking I didn't use any gas and got a workout at the same time!

Monday- Trash

Today I'm going to do things with the trash that I collected yesterday! The following steps correspond to the steps found on the guide.

1. After collecting my trash all day on Sunday I spread it out into two piles. One pile had things that I used for only ten minutes while the other had things that I used for more than ten minutes. You can guess which one had more.....

As you can see, the pile of things that were used for less than ten minutes was way bigger than the other pile. This was probably because the items that I used were very disposable and not reusable. Due to their disposable nature, I did not feel guilt when I previously threw them away soon a

fter using them. I'm certainly feeling the guilt now though...

This pile was not as big because the majority of the items that I threw away were food items that were not made to last a long time. Since this pile was not nonexistent means that I'm not completely hopeless when it comes to making no impact, but I have a long way to go.

2. Throughout the day I kept a non-trash travel kit in my book bag that went with me to school. I had a reusable water bottle in this bag, along with tupperware containers, washable utensils, and plastic bags that were reusable. Though the guide suggested it, I did not carry a rag with me to replace napkins. This was because the rag kept getting dirty and it was not effective. I will keep this kit with me throughout the week.

3. Throughout the day I also tried to reduce my garbage. Almost everything I used was either recyclable, compostable, or reusable. I only slipped up when it came to certain food items, which I kept in a bag before their disposal.

4. Certain food items made their way into my trash bag that I did not know how to deal with. I put items such as tin foil and hard plastics in my trash bag because I wasn't sure whether or not they were recyclable. Other than those select items, it was not as hard as I thought to not make trash. Whenever I had a piece of paper I needed to dispose of, I would search our a recycle bin and one was always nearby. When I began to look for ways to decrease my trash, it made me self conscious about the waste I was creating overall. This self consciousness decreased my trash production better than I could have if I was actively trying. I made almost no waste after I began to be self conscious about trash. However, I was not able to erase it completely which makes me think it may be extremely difficult to eliminate waste altogether.

Sunday-Consumption

This is my post for the Sunday section of the No Impact week guide. The following post will be numbered according to the numbers on the guide.

1. List the stuff you "need" to buy this week:

-Frozen Yogurt (Yum)

-Shoes

-Gas

-Gum

-Sour Patch Kids

-Quodoba

After deleting the items that I didn't need, the following list remained:

-Gas (but not as much as normal)

-Gum (What can I say, gum-chewing is a habit)

2. Collect your trash throughout the day

(More will come of this on Monday)

3. Instead of shopping for food or clothes this week, I will spend time with my friend Daniel almost every day. Even though his house is far away, I'm going to suggest a central location to bike to and meet each other. This way, neither of us will waste gas and we will also get exercise. I'm not going to spend any money on fast food or nonessentials either.

4. The hardest part about decreased purchasing is resisting the urge to buy things that you are craving. As an example, every day I drive by Yoforia on the way home from school. The yogurt that one can purchase at Yoforia is simply amazing and I crave it more frequently than I crave anything else. This presents a problem because when I am craving delicious frozen yogurt, I lack the willpower to stop myself from purchasing some at Yoforia. If I really want to decrease my spending effectively, then I need to cut Yoforia out of my budget.

Another hard part about decreasing purchases is stopping oneself from buying things that don't seem like a lot of money. I have fallen into this trap many times, buying a bottle of water or pack of gum every day simply because they cost around a dollar. But these purchases can quickly add up. By the end of the week I spend around fifteen dollars on things that I bought on a whim because they were cheap. If I really want to decrease my spending, I need to cut these small purchases out of my budget and plan accordingly.

Here we go!!!!

Here I am at the beginning of my journey on No Impact Week. The details of no impact week can be found here. Through this project I hope to minimize my resource use, make changes to my daily life, and influence my family to decrease their own impact. All this while (hopefully) learning new lessons and growing as a person. Wish me luck!