Olivia Carrillo

Last weekend I went to a farmer market nearby and bought some vegetables to plant in my garden. Because of this, I decided to do the challenge on eco friendly gardening. With spring already here and summer just around the corner, I have been outside more trying to figure out what kind of vegetables I want to plant. Every year I always plant tomatoes and cucumbers, but this year I wanted to branch out more and try some other plants as well. I have never had peppers in my garden before so I am excited to see how those turn out! I also bought some green bean seeds and I am looking forward to these too. Gardening is one of my favorite parts about summer because everything is so fresh tasting.

This week I decided to do some research on alternative approaches to measure the economy other than Gross Domestic Product. As I am an economics major, this was a perspective that I was very intrigued by. The concept of Gross National Happiness was something that never even crossed my mind during any of my economics courses. From my research, this form of measurement originated in Bhutan and has 9 domains of happiness, including well being, health, community vitality, and ecological resilience and diversity. These values contribute to a nation's Gross National Happiness and have been influenced by Buddhist practices. Rather than focusing on the monetary value, there is more attention on finding a healthy balance for one's overall well being. I enjoyed learning that GNH has more depth and doesn't only measure the concrete values of economic goods and services. It makes me happy that Gross National Happiness exists and this is definitely a concept that I will be doing more research on!

For last week's eco challenge on transportation, I decided to be more proactive about carpooling to work with one of my coworkers. From my home it takes about 9 miles to get there, where the areas I have to past by are often heavily trafficked. Sometimes it takes even longer to get there and I need to take a route that's even longer. Especially since I work near the Washington Square mall, it has been so much easier to go with another person so that there's one less car on the road. Luckily, I met someone else who also has to commute from Hillsboro so it has been a huge relief. Even for my coworkers that don't live in the same area, I would like to reach out and see if there's an area where we could meet and then travel together. With high gas prices and the carbon emissions that get released, there are enough reasons to consider carpooling and move away from driving independently. 

This week I decided to meet 2 new families in my neighborhood. A couple families just moved out of their homes, so there have been new people that have come into the neighborhood. I thought this was the perfect opportunity to be welcoming and to make them feel comfortable. Since I take my dog on a walk everyday, it makes it a lot easier to talk to neighbors that are already outside. I get to see the new families often and I tried to make the effort to have a conversation every time I was out and about around the neighborhood. Even with the neighbors that have already lived here for awhile, I have been putting in more effort to connect and get to know them as well. After doing this challenge, it made me realize how isolated I have been in my neighborhood. It is very easy to stay to yourself and continue doing your own thing, but I have definitely learned more from communicating with my neighbors. Even though it was definitely outside of my comfort zone, this is something I want to continue doing not only around my neighborhood, but in other social situations too.

I was curious to see how I would do with saying no to plastic so I decided to pick this challenge. It was very difficult and I realized that many products that I use have some bit of plastic. My household does a pretty good job of using reusable bags and we always bring them when going shopping. However, the one weakness we do have is that many of our purchases have been through Amazon or other online services. The quick convenience of shopping online saves a lot of time, but every package from Amazon is brought covered in plastic. Not only is it the convenience, but it's also the fact that many of the products that you buy online or cheaper than buying them in store. As money is also a driving incentive, this has proved to be unexpectedly more difficult than I would have thought. But recently, I have avoided using Amazon and have been better about using reusable bags at stores or shopping at farmer's markets. 

I decided to take on the weekly meal planning for my eco challenge. For my meals, I tend to eat something similar everyday with some variation. Because of this, I decided to just buy the ingredients for my meals in bulk and continue to make meals with the same ingredients until I run out. The grocery store that provides everything in bulk is Costco so I bought lots of vegetables and fruits there. I also decided to check out the local farmer's markets near my home and decided to buy produce from there as well. Even though weekly meal planning seems like a lot of preparation, I researched some simple recipes online and it made this process a lot easier. By eating all of the products that I bought in bulk, I was able to stay away from processed foods and did notice a difference in how my body felt. I am really glad I participated in this eco challenge for this week because it made a positive impact. I will definitely continue to meal prep in the future!

For this week's challenge I decided to take a look at my carbon footprint and find ways to minimize it and think about ways that I can improve it. When I was taking the questionnaire that calculated my footprint, I realized that the amount of packaged and plastic that I have in my home is one of the biggest problems. In my household, it is much more convenient to buy a lot of groceries and is a bit more difficult to home grow products. However, as summer is around the corner, it is much easier to grow plants and will significantly reduce my carbon footprint. Not only would my family be able to rely on home grown products, but it also means that we can start changing our diet for the better. I would also like to find other ways to be able to reduce the amount of plastic consumption in the house during other seasons by maybe having a greenhouse or something. As I already don't eat enough meet anyways, I definitely think it is possible to cut it out of my diet completely and just stick to lots of vegetables and other alternatives. In this way, I would be able to reduce the amount of packaged foods from grocery stores and be able to maintain a healthier lifestyle overall. It would be interesting to see what my carbon footprint score would be after I make these changes in the next few months along with the next year.

For this week, I decided to walk down a path near my neighborhood with my dog. Even though I take my dog to this trail almost everyday, I wanted to be more reflective and really take in my surroundings in the area. I feel very fortunate that I have this trail nearby my home and it made me realize how I may have taken advantage of it in the past. I had always thought of it as an exciting event for my dog to go on a walk but there are so many more benefits that it provides. Not only do I have an awesome companion to walk with, but I also have a deeper appreciation for all the nature that I'm surrounded with. This eco challenge was the most appealing to me as I feel like I have been going through the notions of my day to day routine mindlessly. By taking this 30 minutes to wander, it made me forget about the busyness that I had going on and brought my attention to the present. Even in times of unpredictability, nature has a very powerful way of grounding me and making me feel more alive in a sense. While this was not necessarily a new trail that I explored, I saw it through a new lens and I was able to gain a new perspective and appreciation for this area. With that said, this activity has inspired me to venture out to somewhere new and improve the relationship that I have with the environment.