Abby Strobel

This week I watched the story of bottled water, it was interesting to hear,  I had no idea how much. bottled water we go through or that some brands of bottled water are really just filtered tap water. I think coming from Oregon we get kind of blessed with tap water that actually tastes good. This makes sense for me as whenever I go out of state I buy a lot more bottled water than I do when I'm home.    

For this week's eco change, I was up in government camp so I went and explored a hiking trail around the mountain. I hiked tamanawas falls. It was a fairly mild hike, some steep points along a creek that ended in a huge waterfall. To get to the waterfall you had to hike up a pretty steep and rocky portion before seeing the falls. It was absolutely beautiful to see the trail and the waterfall. The trail was also super clean and everyone walking it was super friendly. It was a great hike and I'd love to do it again.           

This week I chose the project with not using single-use plastic. I have started keeping reusable straws in my car so that I don't need to ask for a plastic straw while I'm out. I would love to bring reusable cups to coffee shops but due to covid they are not being accepted right now, this is something I plan to implement once they are taking reusable cups again. This was a challenge that is also connected to my project as I am working to reduce single-use plastic in my grocery shopping.  

There was an impact on visiting a farm. My first year in college I went to Southern Oregon University and I was in a class that surrounded sustainability, every Friday we would take a field trip to different sustainable environments and learned about different sustainable aspects in the area of Ashland. We went to many farms and would pick food that we were then allowed to take back to campus and use for ourselves, we would also learn about restaurants that served farm-to-table and only served local food that came from a farm a mile away from the restaurant. We got to learn about the waterways in Ashland. It was a very eye-opening class to take and gave a lot of overview on how to live a more sustainable life while in college.