Engraver Arnold

For this eco-challenge, I decided to buy only what I need for a week. I consider myself a pretty frugal shopper and someone who doesn't buy a lot of unnecessary things, but I actually found a lot of opportunities to buy less.
I normally buy paper towels every couple weeks, but since I was running low I decided to use this as an opprortunity to use less paper towels on a daily basis. I decided to avoid using them whenever possible. At first, I found it annoying to use dishrags to clean up my messes and I was reminded why the convenience of paper towels makes them an attractive option. I don't have all that many so I had to wash them pretty soon. However, once I got in the habit of washing the dishrags immediately it felt like less of a hassle after a few days. I did use paper towels to clean up a few pet related messes but I realized that besides that, all the other messes in my life could actually be cleaned up without using paper towels. I have managed to make that last paper towel roll last a few weeks now, which is a huge improvement from before. It's fun to know that I'm helping the environment by throwing away less trash, and it's also cool to be able to buy less.

For this eco-challenge, I began taking daily walks to complete some of my small errands instead of driving. Most days, I drive to a cafe near my house for a coffee and a bagel. I decided to use this as an opportunity to walk instead, since it isn't very far. The first day I planned to do this, I slept in too late and didn't have time to walk. The next morning I made an extra effort to set my alarms so that I could have extra time for my morning walk. When I actually put in the effort to give myself enough time I found that it was really nice and relaxing to have a leisurely morning instead of a rushed one. The walk gave me a great chance to mentally plan for my day, and check in with myself. Oftentimes I don't really have time during my day for a mental-check in until I'm at home, so I really noticed the difference going through the rest of my day having had this mindful moment.
I appreciated having a reason to push myself to go outside more, because even though I enjoy it it can be difficult to motivate myself. I live near Mt Tabor so there's really a lot of great places to walk around near my house with a pretty view-- after doing this exercise I will definitely push myself to take walks more regularly.

For this eco-challenge, I decided to use my daily walks as an opportunity to pick up litter on my street.
I often see litter on the ground in my neighborhood and it makes me sad, but I have never put in the effort to do something about it before. I was surprised that it really didn't feel like work at all, since I already enjoy taking walks through my neighborhood. I brought a garbage bag with me and a rubber glove to pick things up. Weirdly, it was actually kind of fun to find pieces of trash and grab them, sort of like a scavenger hunt. By the end of my 1st walk, ,my bag was full. I was surprised how quickly I was able to accumulate trash once I started looking! Since then I've taken 3 more trash-collecting walks and it's honestly become sort of a fun activity for me. The most recent one I even convinced my roommate to come with me.
I enjoy this activity because of the feeling that comes afterwards, of having helped clean up my neighborhood and from a selfish perspective, having the area around my house look nice and clean. I feel like I hear a lot of people (for example on Nextdoor) complaining about seeing trash in their neighborhood but who aren't willing to do anything themselves to fix it. I would recommend to those people to spend some time cleaning up their neighborhood, because it's actually not that hard and feels great!

This week, I decided to stop using disposable water bottles. I usually buy probably 2 or 3 a week when I have my long days. I had to purchase a reusable water bottle at Fred Meyer -- I wasn't super happy about spending 14 bucks for the cheapest one until I realized that I would have made my money back for the purchase within a couple weeks by cutting back on water bottles. It was pretty easy to switch and I recommend it. My only issue is I tend to lose water bottles easily, but even if I do lose this one it's still a huge step up from buying a disposable water bottle for the day. I like to fill mine up with ice in the morning so it's extra cold all day :)

This week I decided to make some meals using organic ingredients. I went to the farmer's market on Saturday and got some nice potatoes, parsnips, kale, and mushrooms. I used the potatoes, mushrooms and kale in a yummy breakfast scramble. I also made a nice kale salad. By today, I felt that I needed to use up the veg asap so I threw together a soup with everything I had left that I can eat throughout the week. I was surprised by how fresh + delicious the produce were, since I am used to buying veggies from the grocery store. I did spend about 2x as much as I normally do on produce so I don't know if this is a sustainable option for me all the time but I'd definitely like to challenge myself to cook organic/local produce more regularly because it makes me feel good and the higher quality of the produce definitely makes a difference.

This week, I tried to recycle everything I can. I took the plastic out of my empty pasta boxes so that they can actually be recycled and I took extra care to rinse out some empty food jars and a milk carton from my fridge so that they can be properly recycled, which I don't always find the time to do. I had an empty olive oil bottle that I wasn't sure if it could be recycled, but I rinsed it out and turned it into a cute vase instead! I also visited my local dispensary this week to return some empty cannabis containers. They take them back and reuse them which I think is super cool. I've never gotten my act together in the past to bring the containers back but I think I will definitely incorporate that into my routine because it's easy enough just to bring them back the next time I go, and then they're getting reused immediately instead of being sent to a recycling facility. 

I watched the documentary Chasing Coral on Netflix. The film shows scientists' efforts to create a google maps-like visual catalog of underwater coral reefs to show the death/decay of the coral over time and get people to understand the impacts of climate change. They focus on coral reefs in the Florida Keys which have shown a 75% decrease in coral populations in only the last few decades, leaving miles of dead coral affected by "coral bleach" caused by climate change. By 2050, 90% of all coral reefs could be lost. 
Watching this film was a very sobering/emotional experience for me because I care a lot about animals and the earth and seeing the footage of the dead coral was really sad. It makes me want to do more to fight climate change but it also reminds me how huge and seemingly insurmountable this problem is which was hard to watch. It also makes me angry because so much irreparable damage has already been done. I thought it was a really cool idea to show people how disastrous this problem really is by creating an interactive tool to help them really see the problem. It's very sobering to see the difference between the footage from the 70s and what the reefs look like now, I would recommend this movie to anyone who wants to truly understand the scope of coral reef extinction but also what some very creative scientists are doing to combat it.

Hey guys! I'm feeling kind of sensitive today so I'm trying to find a documentary that won't make me sad! Any recommendations?