Geo Barzona

 

            The final week of the eco-challenge was a little bit easier than the third week for me personally. During the third week it got to be a lot to remember and found myself always having to check up on what all my challenges were. This week things began to become more of a habit and the only ones I really had to check up on were my most previously selected challenges. My new challenges for the week consisted of helping others, saying no to plastic straws, using reusable bottles, and exploring a new area.

            The first challenge of helping others proved to be easy as I had done this on a pretty regular basis prior to this. With being on a sports team there are a lot of younger teammates that need help on assignments. Multiple of the assignments were in classes that I had preciously took so I give them help whenever I can. I also take multiple classes with my roommate. He has trouble remembering things about assignments/when they are due, so I also find myself helping him nearly on a daily basis.

            Saying no to plastic straws was also a simple challenge for me. I never really go anywhere or get any drinks that come with plastic straws. I normally eat in the caf which uses cups or at my mod where I just use a glass. This is a challenge I can see myself making permanent as it doesn’t really require me to make much of a change. As it doesn’t require much change for me personally, it will be a step towards reducing the 500,000,000 straws uses daily in the US (plastic pollution collation, pg. 1).

            The challenge of using reusable bottles went pretty hand-in-hand with saying no to plastic straws. Mainly when I drink it’s at the caf or my mod where I only use glasses which are both reusable. If I use anything else to drink it’s my water bottle that’s provided to me by my wrestling team. I use it mainly when I’m at practice or around campus. The only struggle I would face with making this a permanent change would be when I sometimes crave a soda. Most come in bottles or cans, but it could be solved by taking my reusable bottle/mug to somewhere that allows to fill them at fountain machines.

            My final challenge of exploring a new area was definitely my favorite. I have been an outdoorsy kind of person ever since I was a young kid. Hunting and fishing are easily my favorite hobbies. With this being said, when exploring a new area, I made sure it was somewhere that allows for public hunting. The closest area was about 5 miles from campus which consisted of a good amount of state game lands. The area looked very nice and it was a great escape from my usual daily life on campus. I plan on going back to the area in the spring for spring gobbler season any chance that I get

The challenges in week three have begun to get a bit more challenging. The number of challenges to remember has proved to be the most difficult part throughout this week. I find myself more focused on the most recently selected challenges and on multiple occasions caught myself forgetting to continue the challenges from week one. The new challenges I selected for week three was choosing two-sided printing, conserving toilet water, driving less, foraging my food, and writing down three things every day that I am grateful for. In previous weeks a good amount of the challenges were relatable to each other, but this week were of a much wider variety. 

            The first new challenge added to my list was to simply choose double-sided printing. It was a pretty simple task and its hardest part was once again remembering to do so. As professors don’t seem to mind one way or the other, it seems to be a task I could permanently adopt. As it seems extremely simple and wouldn’t make much of a difference its actually very surprising how much paper over time you could save. I find myself printing some kind of material almost every day, so this could make more of a difference in my life then I originally expected.

            The next new challenge for this week was conserving toilet water. This was a challenge a bit different then ones I had been doing and required me to venture away from a social normality. Instead of flushing every single time I used the bathroom I would only flush when I was not urinating. I thought my roommates would notice or say something about this habit, but they never mentioned anything so I’m not sure if it was simply not cared about or just ignored the action. I also wasn’t sure how much of a difference this would make, but it turns out that “if you flush every third time, you’re saving 3.2 gallons of water per night, 22.4 gallons per week, 89.6 gallons per month, and 1,075 gallons a year” (Umbra, paragraph 6). Therefore, this is a habit that I may consider making permanent in my life. The barrier I could see from achieving that would be further down my life when I have a wife. I’m not sure if I could convince her that this is a habit worth adopting. 

            Driving less was definitely the challenge that proved to be the hardest. Previously I would drive nearly everywhere I went across campus including to class, practice, and the caf. It’s just a habit that is practical and saves time in my daily routine. The challenge wouldn’t have been so difficult if I didn’t first live in the mods and second be an athlete. Three days a week my team has mandatory lifts at 6 AM. Forcing myself to walk that distance in the freezing cold that early got very old even in just one week’s time. I think I could use my car less and walk to most of my classes but cutting it out completely isn’t going to work for me. 

            My final two challenges were my most simple being to research where I can forage for my food locally and write down three things per day I am thankful for. I was surprised by the amount of options there was to consume foods on the local level. The option I will try to take advantage of the most is the weekly farmers market that is only a short distance from campus. Writing down three things I am thankful for each day made me realize how many good people and things I have surrounding/supporting me each and every day. Each of these tasks are ones I believe I can easily make permanent throughout my life. 

The second week of the eco-challenge was a bit more difficult, but still pretty easy to accomplish. I chose to take on the three daily challenges of adjusting my thermostat 2 degrees lower, powering down my computer, and enjoying the sunrise/sunset each day. My new one-time challenge for the week was to switch to cold water while doing my laundry. The most difficult part was simple due to the number of things that I had to remember and keep track of. The tasks themselves weren’t hard to put in place as they were still pretty easy challenges and some of them went hand in hand with my previous ones. 

            My daily challenges throughout the week went very smoothly and I had no real difficulties completing them. Powering down my computer already was included in one of my challenges that I chose for last week which was turning off all electrical appliances while not in use. This more just helped to remind me and make this a habit in my daily life. Adjusting the thermostat was another simple and actually extremely enjoyable challenge. I’m normally known as a “warm blooded” person and am almost hot everywhere I go. My roommates like our mod to be at a temperature that is often a bit too warm for me. This gave me a better excuse to keep turning the thermostat down throughout our place. I thought they might get a little annoyed with this, but to my surprise they were both in favor of this once I explained why I was doing this. They are both in environmental related majors so this related to their beliefs strongly and made them optimistic towards the task. My third daily challenge of enjoying the sunrise/sunset was satisfying. I am up nearly every morning before the sun rises due to wrestling lifts/practices. I never really took the time to sit and watch the sun as it rose, but as I did it proved to be a peaceful and grateful way to start my day. The one-time challenge of switching to cold water for my laundry was my most difficult challenge of the week. It wasn’t switching to cold water that made it difficult, doing the laundry itself was. Since I only live 35 minutes away I normally take my laundry home and my mom does it for me. This challenge forced me to take it and do it myself at the laundromat, and that I want necessarily a fan of.

            Similar to last week, most the challenges didn’t show many major barriers into make them a permanent lifestyle change. Enjoying the sunrise/sunset is a very easy challenge to continue throughout my life. The only trouble I notices was it could create a little difficulty on the weekends as I’m probably not going to want to wake up as the sunrises every day of the week. As mentioned before, the cold-water laundry switch would only be a difficult permanent switch due to me having to do my own laundry all the time. It’s a task I just really don’t enjoy doing and will probably have to convince whoever regular does my laundry throughout my life to adopt the habit. Adjusting the thermostat is a lifestyle change that I would definitely want to make permanent. It’s both enjoyable to me, and very beneficial to the environment.” The action reduces energy consumption and contribution to greenhouse gas pollution which threatens wildlife and habitats worldwide” (Oregon Zoo).  Many species such as polar bears, bumblebees, frogs, and Pikas are all proven to benefit from making this small switch as the dependent greatly on the climate. Adopting this as a permanent habit in our society could help bring the Earths’ climate back to a more stable place and protect our animal species.

            Overall, my first week of the ecochallenge went pretty well. My challenges I selected were pretty simple as I wanted to ease my way into this type of lifestyle with some smaller changes. The first challenge I selected was to simply turn off lights, electronics, and appliances when they were not in use. It took a couple days to get into the swing of things and make this a habit. I would often walk by the bathroom or my bedroom and notice that I had left the lights on after leaving the room. Turning the electronics off while not in use was surprisingly the easier task. It just came to my mind a lot easier after completing homework or going to bed to simply turn off my lap top/cell phone. The challenge made me realize how much I truly do leave energy consuming technologies running when they are being totally unused. The major barriers that would hold me back from making this a permanent lifestyle change is the fact that I am currently and probably always will be sharing my living space with other people. In some cases, I would make sure to turn the lights off in a room and it would be moments later before one of my roommates used the room and left them on. It would need to be a mutual agreement to me and whoever I am living with at the time to take on this habit in order to make it a permanent change or else it would get far too frustrating. Although it could be frustrating at times due to living with other people, it still is a habit I would be willing to make permanent. Not only is it better for the environment, but it also saves money. As mentioned in one of the resources, even when some devices are turned off they still continue to use energy. “These phantom energy suckers can account for as much as 20% of your monthly electricity bill” (Duke Energy). This alone is enough incentive for me to adopt this habit now as when I have to pay my own electrical bills this could be major cost reducer. I was also hesitant on rather these small changes would actually make a difference on the environment, which then led me to be a little hesitant at first on a permanent change. The reading by “Smarter House” changed my mind on this as they explained that if every US college student changed to LED bulbs we could avoid the emissions of a commercial power plant. I imagined turning appliances completely off when not in use would have a similar or even greater effect, giving me even more of an incentive. 

            My other daily challenge was to de-clutter and clean my room. This was probably the most difficult challenge for me as I tend to be pretty messy. I often leave clothes laying all around my room and this forced me to change this habit. It also encouraged me into getting rid of a lot of the clothes that I no longer wear or have grown out of. This was surprisingly nice as it freed up a lot of room in my closet and dresser. This challenge proved to have the same barriers as the one mentioned before due to sharing the space with another person. I came to conclusion in order to do either of the challenges permanently I would also have to convince whoever I’m living with to take on the challenge with me or else it would get far too frustrating. My one-time challenge was very simple and only required me to purchase some foods from a local farmers market. I could see this being something I do permanently for some foods, but not all due to being a little costly in some cases.