Less Plastic, Shutting Off More Lights and a 3 Month Transition
This February, I made a commitment to help reduce my carbon footprint on the Earth.
Ultimately, I decided to focus on two main things- turning off the lights and reducing my use of single-use
plastics. I wrote two separate sections, one a month into the change and one now, as the official project
is coming to an end.
Ultimately, I decided to focus on two main things- turning off the lights and reducing my use of single-use
plastics. I wrote two separate sections, one a month into the change and one now, as the official project
is coming to an end.
March 13, 2018.
Things I have noticed: As I am now about a month into this lifestyle change, I have some observations in
the form of a stream-of-consciousness I thought I was good about shutting lights off before- I was far
from perfect. I never went out of my way to shut off all the lights in the classrooms down the hall, and
I often would not shut things off if I was coming back in the next hour.
Things I have noticed: As I am now about a month into this lifestyle change, I have some observations in
the form of a stream-of-consciousness I thought I was good about shutting lights off before- I was far
from perfect. I never went out of my way to shut off all the lights in the classrooms down the hall, and
I often would not shut things off if I was coming back in the next hour.
- Turning off the lights and the projector and all has become a habit. So much so that I shut the lights off on a coworker who I did not notice was sitting there :D.
- While he found it funny, I determined that now that a habit has formed, it is time to employ by observation skills WITH my newly formed habits.
- Not everyone wants the lights off when they leave the room and I now find that frustrating even if it is for a good reason.
- This goal is made increasingly easy during a Boston blizzard when the power goes out. No effort required.
- I wish my classroom projector had an extender pole. As I knew before, to turn on or off the projector I have to grow and inch or two, decreasing ease of use. This does impact my annoyance level.
- Plastic bags are EVERYWHERE. Yes I knew this, yes I noticed it but again, I did not realize the habit I was in.
- Asking for reusable containers to take home leftovers works at my family’s house but not so well elsewhere.
- There is no good reusable freezer thing that I found and it was frustrating as I am also trying not to waste food or money when food shopping so I am in the habit of wrapping each portion of meat to freeze in plastic baggies.
- Non-plastic bags are much more expensive in one go than the others but probs save money over time.
- These reusable ones do not feel as clean to use although they probably are. I do not know why, it is weird.
Sometimes I really do have too many things in my hands and it is not worth spilling my coffee to turn off the lights.
Note from April 3rd, Location, Porto, Portugal
Sunday May 6th
- This challenge has been really insightful, challenging and rewarding for me.
- I have turned to now shutting off every on-light I see as I walk down the hallways at school.
- There are a LOT of lights kept on despite signs my 6th graders made to remind us to just them off that are hanging above the light switch.
- Maybe signs above light switches is not the optimal space for the signs as if you are not remembering to shut off the lights anyways then you are not going to the light switches? I wonder what a better solution may be?
- I can shit off the lights without spilling my coffee, or with a foot, who knew I was so multi-talented :D
- When apologizing for interrupting conversations to shut off lights, they are really appreciative that I am doing so...so then why am I apologizing? Seems that I have more to ponder than I realized.
- Sometimes plastic cups are unavoidable because gosh do I love my Dunkin's coffee. It is easy to ask for a paper cup instead of styrofoam when ordering hot coffee there (all I can handle until about 2 weeks ago when winter ended). However, while I am so happy to have hit summer, with spring skipped her, I am struggling to find a new strategy for getting my ice coffee in a sustainable manner. I also hate straws but when driving what choice do I have?!
- I found a solution to my freezer portioning- parchment paper! Ok so it is not perfect but it is better...lets see if it works...
- This one is weird- I also save plastic bags from other things I get in the store and use that to freeze food, so single use plastic turned multiuse:)
- Plastic cups at school would make me frustrated and now make me mad. As summer hit we had a stack for kids to get water outside so my newfound confidence in my ability to make a change had me marching up to three different members of our faculty asking forcefully for change. While we had the weekend I will find out if it worked! If not, then I will be back:)
- Update: the parchment paper worked! Now time to work on my defrosting skills;)
Conclusions:
Ok, so it is really hard to know how much energy I saved by doing basic things like turning
off the lights and using less plastic, but it felt like I made a solid change. While the guilt of not being
perfect (especially when I get my coffee to go with a straw) weighs on me, I find that through this project
I because much more aware of my actions, especially things that I thought I was already doing quite
well on. I find that these new habit were quite easy to form once I was determined, but still ones I need
to practice. My next goal is education (I know surprising to read from a teacher), but currently my pet
peeve is the one time use kcups (my work has beautiful reusable ones but because better tasting
coffee is often packaged in the single use ones, many people prefer to bring their own). I always find
the balance between being an educator and being annoying about it to be small so that is a line I will
continue to explore. Lucky, my intentions are good so I hope that helps.
Ps: Check out this ted talk about using mushrooms as plastic, so so cool!!!
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