Isabelle Hilder

For the food challenge I selected to have a certain number of meatless or vegan meals for the week. I normally do not eat animal meat, but I do eat eggs sometimes. So I decided to have 7 vegan meals for this week- one for each day of the week. I realized it was a bit harder to plan things out as my normal diet includes some animal products. It also was a bit tricky to do this back home with my American family for the holidays, so I found that breakfast is when I was able to have the most control of my meals and decided to keep those vegan as they were the meals I would eat not with my whole family. Overall, I think it was great to challenge myself to move my diet to being even better for the planet and I think I will continue to enjoy meatless meals as well as adding in vegan meals when I am able to!  

In New York City, there are always some bits of litter to pick up even though there are bins and recycling bins on almost every corner. So, it was not hard to pick up bits here and there. I used gloves as I usually do when I pick up trash and got some weird looks from people, but I was able to talk to some people in my building who were curious about what I was doing with a “trash pincher” as one woman in my building called it. I think out of a covid world it would have been easier to engage with my neighbors, but lobby chats are not really happening right now and my building has a one household in the elevator time policy right now, but it was still nice I got to ask some of my neighbors to help me collect trash sometime in the New Year!

I selected to reduce my footprint for the  Ecological Principles challenge. I spoke with my mom in NYC about reducing our footprint. We spoke about kitchen roll and how reusable tea towels save money and waste. She agreed she would not buy a kitchen roll going forward, but instead use the reusable tea towels we have. We also decided that for clothing that is not really big and bulky we would use the clothes horse instead of the dryer to save electricity. Finally, when life goes back to normal and we are commuting more, my mom has decided to begin walking to work 3 days a week instead of taking the subway or a cab and I said I would do the same if I live in NYC when I graduate and will be able to walk to work. 

Using only muscle-powered transportation was probably easier for me this week in quarantined life than "normal" life, so I feel like I can't take a lot of credit for it. I don't go very many places these days, especially with the restrictions in England. The only places I went this week were walking down to the seaside to walk alone the stones and poped over to my Aunt's garden for a cup of tea outside. I guess perhaps if I weren't doing this challenge we may have driven, but the weather was nice and it's not a far jaunt. I think when life goes "back to normal" it may be a bit difficult to only use muscle-powered transportation, but in NYC it will be probably easier before life goes back to "normal" as I don't see myself really using the subway in the near future in the city- I think I'll opt for a walk through the cold instead for a while. 

Using only muscle-powered transportation was probably easier for me this week in quarantined life than "normal" life, so I feel like I can't take a lot of credit for it. I don't go very many places these days, especially with the restrictions in England. The only places I went this week were walking down to the seaside to walk alone the stones and poped over to my Aunt's garden for a cup of tea outside. I guess perhaps if I weren't doing this challenge we may have driven, but the weather was nice and it's not a far jaunt. I think when life goes "back to normal" it may be a bit difficult to only use muscle-powered transportation, but in NYC it will be probably easier before life goes back to "normal" as I don't see myself really using the subway in the near future in the city- I think I'll opt for a walk through the cold instead for a while. 

This week I challenged myself to only buy what I needed for health and safety. It was a bit tough as I wanted to do some holiday shopping for my relatives, but I decided to get a bit crafty and make some of them myself with things I already had at home. I think during the holiday season it can be tough to not buy things that are essential and I've been trying to come up with some creative ways to skip out on single use items, like wrapping paper this year. I was able to only purchase what I really needed, but I definitely found myself putting some things back on the shelves at the shop once I took a minute to think about if I really needed them. 

I was not able to fully accomplish my task of saying no to plastic the water challenge. I usually am pretty good about not using single use plastics, but I was unable to use my reusable grocery bags this week like I would do in "normal" life, however,  our shop now does not allow for customers to use reusable bags with their Covid measures. I can understand why they have put this regulation in place, especially with cases rising in England, but I did still fail in my commitment as our bags were just sitting in the boot instead of being used sadly. 

I love eating meatless meals. When I am in America, for the last several years, I do not eat any kind of animal flesh nor eggs, but when I am outside of the U.S and can know more about where my meat comes from, I will it meat sometimes. It felt really good to go back to not eating animal flesh, although I did eat eggs. It was a bit hard to explain to some members of my family who came over for dinner why I was choosing to not eat meat as they grew up around farming and sometimes have a hard time really grasping that factoring farming and less sustainable farming practices exist. 

I was surprised at how much I did not miss meat as I remember craving chicken burgers for many years in America. I hope to continue to keep eating less meat and showing my family that meatless meals are not just healthy, but can be really tasty, too! 

I recycle everything I can every week. It can sometimes be a bit tricky for me to remember what gets recycled depending where I am living. For example, when I am in New York so many things can be recycled, but when I spend time with my family in England, it can be hard to remember that aluminum cans cannot be recycled. Or when I am in rural Ireland, we bring our refuge to the dumping grounds ourselves and then the recycling center is a separate trip on its own. 

I did make a mistake this week, one that I’ve done many times before. I forgot to separate the sides of a takeaway pizza box. So I put the whole thing, both the top and the grease covered bottom in the recycling bin….to then three hours later realize what I had done and sort through the recycling container, looking like a mad woman. One of my neighbors asked what I was doing rummaging through the bin, and I ended up having a great conversation with him about what our neighborhood accepts for recycling and what it does not. 

I found a new walking trail through farmlands near where I am staying in England. On the lefthand side of the photographs there are big tubes poking out of the ground. I belive these are for the water testing going on in  the area, which I'm excited to learn more about as I keep exploring the South coast. You'll see the sheep dotting the fields in the distance. Happy hiking!