Drew Loughran

Drew Loughran

9/21/20

ENST 246 

Journal 6

 

            This week I started on two more daily challenges that I thought were good additions to the challenges I have been currently doing. I decided to ramp up the amount of waste reductions challenges I am doing because those will have more of an effect on the environment. The first daily challenge that I have added it deciding to skip the straw. This is something I have been trying to do even before taking this class because of the recent activity it has had country wide with the save the turtles movement. (Not sure if this is worldwide which is why I said country wide) This is actually becoming easier and easier to do these days because many restaurants are now accustomed with not giving a straw with your drink unless you ask for it. This is something I am also trying to get my dad to stop doing. He is pretty addiment on getting a straw every time and I yell at him for doing so every time he does. I might have to get him a metal reusable straw the next time it is his birthday. There was nothing too surprising to this daily challenge. My other daily challenge was using reusable bags whenever I could. This is something I was not doing great with at the start of the semester but wanted to change. I was realizing I was using a ton of plastic bags when I was going to GAINT to get groceries. My excuse was I had no reusable bags, however when I started the challenge, I realized I had the bags that Bucknell gave us when we moved in. I have now gotten my roommates to also not use those plastic bags. There was nothing too surprising except for how I actually already had all of the reusable bags. For one of my one-time challenges I researched toxic waste near me and found a map with at 1300 waste sites in the US. I found it surprising how many of these locations were around the tri-state area. I know there are a lot of cities around here, but it still really crazy. Overall, the one surprising thing I am finding is keeping up with all of my daily challenges because there are so many to complete a day. I find myself for example not skipping a straw a day because I don’t have a time where a straw will come up. 

            I don’t think adding these daily challenges with make any huge lifestyle changes because they are stuff I already half did. It is more about being conscious all the time when making these decisions. 

            When I did some reading of the resources, the most interesting article I read was on the banning of plastic bags. I didn’t even know that countries or states have banned them. I think that is a great start on a global scale because I thought we weren’t even on that stage yet. In addition, I think China having a ban on them huge because they would be a high user of them. I wonder what all of China does to prevent grocery stores from using them. Is there some type of supplement bag that they are using.  

Drew Loughran

9/14/20

ENST 246

Journal 5

 

For this week I picked up two new daily tasks along with continuing to do my first two daily tasks as well. One of the new daily tasks was meditating for a minute a day. Doing this task was so great for me because I have begun to learn how to destress while doing it. I spend that minute with my eyes closed and just thinking about whatever pops to mind. Usually I try and think of three things going well right now in my life and 1 bad thing that I am going to try and fix. Through this meditation I found that one bad thing happening in my life right now is the lack of exercise I am doing. This then became a challenge I started last week of running at least once every day for the next two weeks. (First couple days I was very sore J) The second daily challenge I picked up was keeping track of my daily expenses. This was not as difficult as a task because I did not purchase something every day. I did however spend some time putting together the expenses I have spent so far this semester in groceries. In good news my parents will be very happy because I am on track to spend less than $1400 for the entire semester, which is much less than they usually pay for my meal plans. (I am able to do this because I live off-campus) My one-time action for this week was spending time to understand pollution and the high-risk area around Lewisburg. What I found surprising was that I couldn’t find too much information on it in my google searches. I did find that route 15 is a polluted area, which makes sense due to all the car and trucks coming through.

There are no real barriers at all for me to continue to carry these tasks on in my daily life. Meditating is something I have been very happy about doing and something I really want to continue doing. Keeping track of my expenses is something I am going to need to do as I continue in real life past college. The only barrier I can think of with keeping track of expenses is that my expenses list is going to grow as I start to become entirely independent from my parents.

From reading the resources of the mediate daily challenge, I really enjoyed how you are allowed to let your mind wander because it is almost like breathing for your brain. This is something that I did experience while doing my meditations. I am going to continue to meditate throughout my life because it is such an easy and relaxing way to calm down or destress from the world. Not that I necessarily disagree with what they are saying for the resources of the tracking my purchases, I did not have the same personal experience. The resources talked about when you should buy something or “making the right choice” and this is something I did not have trouble with. I do not normally buy things just to buy them, so I did not experience that. I do however want to keep tracking my purchases because it will be very helpful when I am finally independent from my parents. 

Drew Loughran

9/7/20

ENST 246

Journal 4

 

So, the first daily challenge that I took upon myself for the first week and the coming weeks is driving less. I personally put that I want to drive a mile less a day and I thought that is a very reasonable goal to put on myself. I live downtown off of Bucknell’s campus and not driving to campus saves a mile every day. I have had almost zero issues with trying to drive less and just take the extra time to walk to campus. In addition to not driving less, I get to enjoy a nice walk most mornings. This however might change based on the weather. I can see this challenge becoming more difficult when it is the middle of winter and it is very cold out. The surprising part to me was see the pounds of CO2 saved by driving just a mile less every day. The other daily challenge that I took upon myself was taking shorter showers. This means specifically that I would take a maximum of 5 minutes in the shower. The surprising part for me on this challenge is that I can actually sometimes get my shower time to below three minutes. One reason I can do this is because I use 3 in 1 soap while I am at college, which is soap, shampoo, and conditioner all in one container. There were not too many struggles trying to complete this one, but I could see women having more trouble with this because I know they have more hair products than I use. This will ultimately increase the shower time and the gallons of water used. 

            In all honestly, I do not think there are any barriers to making these lifestyle changes permanent. I say this because I think taking a shower under 5 minutes every time is not that difficult with my shower routine. In addition, trying to drive less and just walking instead is another challenge that I can incorporate for the rest of my life. I know that some places I will have to drive because the walk is too far, but for places that is a walkable distance away, I would totally walk.

            The resource in the learn more section of the driving less challenge was quite interesting in terms of making places a walkable distance away. The video was about making Las Vegas a Transit Oriented Development. This means put the transit system in place before it becomes very populated so that developers will want to build housing and restaurants near the transit stop. This would allow for people to drive less because everything they might need is a walkable distance away. The resource I read for taking a shorter shower mentions putting a bucket in the shower to collect water until it is hot. I think this is a wonderful idea and something that can easily be done.  The article continues to mention to use the water to water plants, flush toilets, or even clean. This is such a good multiuse idea. 

            I would be willing to make these changes to my lifestyle because I think it will have a positive effect on the environment and myself. In addition, this will not change my lifestyle by that much.