Final Reflections...

Well, this is the last blog entry so it was time to recalculate my ecological footprint and have a moment of truth with myself (and anyone else that happens to read this...) At the beginning of this journey, if everyone on the planet lived like me then we would have needed 4.58 Earths; I still remember how shocked I was to learn that I had so many unsustainable habits integrated into my life. I felt like it was a successful quarter in meeting my goals that I had set in an effort to reduce my contribution to the environmental problems we are facing, but was unsure if this would be reflected in my quiz results. After taking the quiz, I am proud to report that if everyone on the planet lived like me, we would now "only" need 3.34 Earths. While this is obviously still triple what is available and clearly still a problem, I feel that it is a significant improvement, especially considering the limited amount of time that I had to make these changes. After all, if it only took me 3 months to make these small improvements that resulted in this much of an impact, imagine what I could accomplish after continuing to adjust my habits for 6 months or a year!

In order to see the improvements, here is a chart showing my new ecological footprint. Beneath it, I have explained the most significant changes leading to my more sustainable lifestyle.

- My new carbon footprint is 73.3, which dropped from 92.1 when I first took this quiz. There were a couple changes that I made that were responsible for this reduction. I committed to carefully planning my driving so that I was not taking many short drives or backtracking around town, minimizing the amount of time that I am on the road. I also adopted more energy saving habits, such as using power strips to turn off electronics and replacing heat lamps and normal lighting with compact fluorescent bulbs.
- My new food footprint was also reduced from 41.4 to 25.3. This was also the result of a couple small changes. Instead of eating a few large meals a day, I eat one substantial meal and then a number of smaller snacks through out the day. While this was not an initial goal that I had set, between being really busy and trying to maintain my health it just worked out to also being a more sustainable choice. Secondly, instead of doing my grocery shopping at large grocery stores, I have adopted shopping almost always at Trader Joe's, which leads to my buying almost all organic food now.

- There was a minimal reduction in my housing footprint, from 9.0 to 7.4. I believe this small change was just due to following slightly better water saving habits, such as taking shorter showers. Also, I hardly wash my car during the fall and winter, nor do I spend time hosing down my deck since I hate being cold outside. The benefit to this is that it also plays a part in reducing the amount of water consumed, lowering my housing footprint.

- My goods and services footprint dropped from 35.1 to 23.6. While this is also not a really huge reduction, I believe that significant change comes from compiling many small ones. The only change that I consciously made to reduce this was to become better at recycling, even if it was not always the most convenient. When I was throwing away things that I knew could be recycled, I felt guilty and got irritated with myself for being lazy. Since that's not any fun, I altered my behavior and started recycling any bottles or cans, as well as paper products. I was raised to recycle things instead of just throwing them away, and I am glad to have restored this old habit.

Overall, I feel that it has been a worthwhile experience and that I have learned a lot. I had never invested much thought in trying to be more sustainable, probably because I had no idea how "bad" my lifestyle was to begin with. After realizing this, I would have assumed that it would require massive (i.e. inconvenient) changes in order to remedy this, and have been pleasantly surprised ever since. Because it has been a relatively easy adjustment, I am confident that I will be able to maintain these changes that I have made and continue to lead a more sustainable lifestyle, and this makes me feel like I am able to say that I am at least a small part of the much needed solution, instead of blindly continuing to contribute to the problem.

I will leave you with two of my favorite quotes to ponder:

"Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them."

~ Albert Einstein

"I cannot understand why people are frightened of new ideas; I am frightened of the old ones."
~ John Cage

Oranges for Orangutans

This morning, in the midst of my typical slightly controlled chaos that is the process of me getting out the door, I grabbed the Tropicana Orange Juice carton in my fridge and poured a glass. As I was putting the carton away, some tiny print on one side of it caught my eye. Turns out, Tropicana is currently involved in a promotion until the end of this year to help save the rainforest, and I thought it was a really neat project and wanted to post it here...

The promotion is called "Rescue the Rainforest". In the words straight from the carton:

"Rainforest is disappearing fast and causing our climate to change. Together with Cool Earth, Tropicana aims to save thousands of acres of endangered rainforest and protect our future." Each carton of orange juice has a unique code printed on the side of it. All a consumer needs to do is go to http://www.tropicanarainforest.com/ and enter in the code. For each code entered, Tropicana and Cool Earth are preserving 100 square feet of rainforest. The website is actually really nicely done, with information about the rainforest as well as interactive components such as games for kids. I realize that 100 square feet is really not a huge amount, but I would be willing to bet that Americans consume a large quantity of orange juice consistently. If everyone opted to support Tropicana, considering that they will be buying orange juice (or any one of the other 36 Tropicana products that qualify to rescue the rainforest) anyways, and then took a few minutes to enter the code on the website, a lot of rainforest could be preserved! Check it out! :)

Leather - Not just bad for the cows?

I admit, I am not one that has given a lot of thought to the use of leather, even though I know that is quite upsetting to some people (not to mention PETA). When I started thinking about a way to redesign a product that could be more sustainable, I wanted to pick something that I would actually want to use and was applicable in my life. I train mixed martial arts (a form of fighting called mma) 6 days a week, and my thoughts immediately jumped to all the equipment I use for my sport. Everything from the heavy bags, Thai pads and focus mitts to the bxing and mma gloves that I wear are made with leather as the outer material. I decided to find out how bad leather is as a material (and not just from the cow's perspective...) Granted, most of the equipment has a pretty long life cycle considering how often it is used, but what if there was a way to shift the industry away from using leather?

Turns out, leather is pretty unsustainable for a few reasons. The process of turning animal hide into leather is really energy intensive, comparable to the gross consumption of energy required for aluminum, steel, paper, cement and petroleum-manufacturing. Also, the animal hide is treated with chromium and any waste containing this has been deemed hazardous by the EPA. There is some concern that some of the other chemicals used in the process also present some health and environmental risks but these haven't been substantiated enough to be declared as fact yet. Finally, although animal skin would naturally be biodegradable, the fiber structure is altered when it is turned into leather, making it not possible to dispose of any leather product involved in my sport using a sustainable method.

Currently there are a few viable substitutes for leather, some of which even have a similar cost to produce. I searched for a long time to see what companies are using these alternatives for, but so far they seem to be used primarily only for items such as shoes, clothing, etc. I am going to research it a little further and who knows, maybe we can all someday be using more sustainable gear in our quest for the amazing knock out! :)

Wondering if this would catch my eye...

Just to have some fun, entertaining the idea of using this as inspiration for an ad designed to catch the eye of college students, making them smile while serving as a reminder that an easy way to be more sustainable and reduce your carbon footprint is to just turn out lights!

Paying tribute to the gods of snow...

In honor of the upcoming ski/snowboarding season, I decided to take a look at what impact one of my beloved sports has on the environment. I had always assumed that skiing or snowboarding is a fairly sustainable activity, not taking into consideration the drive to and from the mountain and the impact that the lifts and lodges have. After all, you're enjoying the great outdoors, ideally surrounded by nature, blue skies and powder! How bad could it be right?

What I had failed to think about was the most critical component; my actual snowboard. Traditionally, every ski or snowboard is made from some combination of wood, foam, plastic, fiberglass, carbon fiber, steel, and aluminum. The finished ski or board sandwiches these materials with a chemical bond, most commonly epoxy resin. The result is an amazingly durable ski or snowboard. While this is considered an asset by those of us that enjoy the sport, it makes the ski or board impossible to separate or recycle. As a result, almost every ski and snowboard ever made still exists today, and once it has been discarded will typically end up in a landfill. Although the life cycle of skis and snowboards varies, most people will get a new one at least every few years, and some enthusiasts kick off every new season with new gear. That's a huge quantity of skis and snowboards that are being thrown away every year, which suddenly makes my sustainable sport not so very sustainable after all...

Recently it seems that some ski and snowboard companies have reached the same conclusion; if the sport is slowly contributing to the destruction of the very environment it relies on, something better change or eventually the industry will end up taking a long ride off a short cliff. As a result, theses companies have begin offering skis and snowboards built using sustainable materials. Here is a list of some of the companies using sustainable practices. If anyone is in the market for something new to play on the mountain with, check them out!

- Movement Skis- uses all Forest Stewarship Council (FSC) or Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) certified wood to build all their cores

http://www.movementskis.com/

- Arbor Snowboards - uses all farmed aspen, poplar, oak, cork and bamboo to build their boards

http://www.arborsports.com/

- Venture Snowboards - uses all sustainable wood that is farmed in Pennsylvania (the company is located in Colorado)

http://www.venturesnowboards.com/

- Kings-wood Skis - the world's first carbon neutral ski manufacturer; uses farmed bamboo for the core of all their skis

http://www.kingswoodskis.com/

"There is neither heaven nor earth, only snow..." Happy Riding!

Checkpoint Numero Dos...

Today I thought it would be a good idea to sit down and evaluate my progress again in my efforts towards living more sustainably. I have still followed through on my goals that I chose at the beginning of the quarter, but a couple weeks ago I had added a couple new ones.

My first goal that I had added was to start using a travel mug instead of the disposable coffee cups from Starbucks since I drink coffee almost daily (yes, I realize there may be a bigger issue there than just the cup it comes in, such as the quantity, but that's for another day!). Unfortunately, I have to confess that I have not yet done this. The next time I was at Starbucks I glanced at the travel mugs they sold there, decided the prices were ridiculous and didn't buy one. To be honest, since then I just haven't made it a priority to go look elsewhere and get one, as embarrassing as that is to admit... Before the quarter ends though I REALLY am going to meet this goal!

My second goal was to get some power strips to use in my apartment so that it was easy for me to shut down my electronics. My cell phone and laptop used to be plugged in and/or on literally 24 hours a day and a power strip would make it easy to remedy this. I mentioned this to my dad and he gave me two power strips so I was able to take care of this goal only a few days after I set it! I now have a power strip in my bedroom for my cell phone, lamp and fountain as well as another power strip in the living room for my laptop and other electronics. It took me a little while to get into the habit of remembering to flip the switch but I do pretty well at it now.

Just looking at the two goals above, it averages out to only a 50% success rate, which is failing by most standards. Ouch! But combined with the other changes I have made throughout this quarter, I suppose I am doing alright. It's amazing how all the little changes can add up over time to a somewhat re-vamped lifestyle, but I am optimistic I'll get it down over time! Then once that happens, I can start harping on my friends. I'm sure they can hardly wait... :)

Just Some Thoughts

It's easy to get overwhelmed thinking about the catastrophic state of our planet and forget about the impact that one person can actually make, just by being aware of small (at times seemingly insignificant) things. Because of this, I wanted to compile a short list of facts that make you think about how much of a difference each one of us could actually be responsible for...

-The average college student produces 640 pounds of solid waste each year, including 500 disposable cups and 320 pounds of paper
-Americans throw away enough aluminum every 3 months to completely and totally rebuild the country's entire commercial air fleet.
- Just today, 62 million newspapers will be printed and 44 million will be thrown away. This results in the equivalent of about 500,000 trees thrown into a landfill every week.
- In his/her lifetime, the average American will throw away about approximately 600 times his/her adult body weight in garbage; this translates into each adult leaving behind about 90,000 pounds of trash for his/her child to deal with.
- By recycling just 1 aluminum can, enough energy is saved to run a TV for 3 hours or to light 1 100 watt bulb for 20 hours.
- A heavy coat of dust on a light bulb can block up to half its light.
- A water faucet that leaks one drop per second can add up to 165 pounds in one month.
- A crack that is only 1/16th of an inch in a window frame lets out enough heat (or lets in enough cold air) to be equivalent to having the window open 3 inches.

Considering some of these helped renew my commitment to believing that my actions can and do make a difference! In the words of the Roman Emperor Hadrian, "Brick by brick my citizens, brick by brick."

Sources:
www.pdx.edu/sustainability/recycling-facts
http://www.sustain.ucla.edu/