Real Cost of Water!

Wow how time flies, can’t believe that for the past three week I have not purchased a bottled drink. The best part is I’m feeling GREAT. I definitely see myself making this a way of life. I have saved around $10 this week and to my surprise lost another couple pounds.

                With the rising gas prices it has been kind of nice having the extra couple dollars in my pocket that I would usually buy a drink with. When researching the economic effect of bottle water I found this. I was absolutely amazed at how much oil bottled water consumed. As Americans it seems like we are getting lazier. As this happens industries have been trying harder to make things more convenient for us. Usually when this happens it takes more packaging or materials, which also mean more oil is used to make this possible. This also means that with the extra demand we are driving up the cost of gas! So the next time you are shopping keep in mind of how it all relates and maybe buy bulk or go without.

Money Money Money

Progress

Three weeks in and things are going pretty well.

Riding my bike has been no big deal, and it really didn’t take a huge mental switch to continue this habit.  I thought I would want to drive my car more than I do, but biking really hasn’t been so bad.  Sometimes when I have to go to campus alone I think it would be easier to drive, but when I go with someone else (as is usually the case), riding my bike is the natural choice.

I did drive to campus once but it was kind of necessary at the time.  I was making an evening trip, and I had lost my bike light, so the safer choice was to just drive instead.  Plus, I didn’t want a $100 ticket for biking without a light (I actually know someone who got one)!

Problems

The food portion of my promise has been getting slightly more difficult as time progresses.  Purchasing food in bulk hasn’t been too hard since I made a major grocery shopping trip last week, and I still have lots of bulk food left.  I have not purchased any microwave meals since starting my promise, and I have not eaten any that are in my freezer either.  In addition to individual microwave meals, I have also not purchased or eaten any frozen family-size meals, so I think I am doing pretty well on that front.

The problems have arisen in my elimination of prepackaged snacks from my diet.  At first I thought, “This is simple; I will replace packaged snacks with fresh fruit.”  But this has not proved quite as simple as I had thought.  Fruit snacks come in large boxes and can provide two snacks a day for several days, and I can buy several boxes at once so I always have a snack on hand.  With my new promise, I have had to go to the grocery store more often to purchase fresh fruit and vegetables, and sometimes I just don’t want to go to the grocery store.  But…. I suck it up and go anyway.  And of course there is a time issue.  When I am running out the door in the morning because I overslept because I was up late studying (or not), making a nice healthy homemade snack isn’t always my first thought.

 This looks nice,

but this is soooo much easier! Unfortunately.

I normally have time in the mornings to fully prepare for my day, but on the off chance that I don’t, it is nice to have a packaged snack to fall back on.  I will have to work on this because I like replacing granola bars and fruit snacks with healthier and fresher options and knowing that I’m not producing so much trash.

Money in my pocket

As for the bulk food, I recently made a large shopping trip to restock my fridge and cupboards, and I noticed that I spent quite a bit less money than I normally do.  My shopping cart looked different than normal, as it was full of fresh vegetables, fresh fruit, and bulk food items, but I believe that I bought enough food to feed me for the same length of time as I normally do.  I always knew that bulk food was more economical, but it was nice seeing the almost $15 difference on my receipts!  I made some new, delicious, and healthy meals with these foods as well, so I think that this is something I would like to continue indefinitely.

Biking has definitely saved me some money too.  Short around town trips are the worst for gas mileage, and these are the kinds of trips I normally make.  I filled up my car last time I was in Portland, about a week before this class began, and I don’t think I will need to refill it again until I am back up in Portland in 2 weeks! I don’t know exactly how much money I am saving, since some weeks I am a heavy car user and other weeks I hardly use it at all.  But it has been nice that for these past few weeks I have barely had to drive at all because I have even taken my biking promise one step further and been riding it around town too.

Money in yours too…

Biking instead of driving has saved me some direct costs, but it can also contribute to the economy.  Ditching your car can have widespread effects, especially if many people do it.

Less driving –> less stops at gas stations –> less money leaving your pocket and going into a large oil company’s –> more money in your pocket for supporting local businesses –> better economy!

And on another track:

More biking –> more exercise –>better health –> less obesity and sedentary lifestyle related disease –> healthier community and nation –> better economy!

A 2008 study in Portland “clocked bicycle-related industry alone as contributing $90 million to the local economy every year” due to increase in bike shops and bike related business (Bikenomics).  That’s pretty amazing.  And here is another little tidbit about bicycling contributing to the economy: “Construction of bike paths offers more job creation per infrastructure dollar than investment in roads” (The Bicycle Divided).  I think more cities are starting to realize that if they supply biking infrastructure, people will ride.

In addition to saving gas, biking also cuts back on greenhouse gas emissions, which really benefits everyone by providing cleaner air and slowing climate change, and ultimately saving lives.  The benefits could really be infinite if more people made the switch.

My Motivation

I am motivated to continue with my personal sustainability promises because I feel healthier, I like getting extra exercise, and I am saving money. Oh, and helping the environment is nice too.

Blue, E. (2011, Mar 1). How bicycling will save the economy (If we let it). Bikenomics. Retrieved from http://grist.org/biking/2011-02-28-how-bicycling-will-save-the-economy/

Folbre, N. (2011, July 4). The Bicycle Divided. The New York Times. Retrieved from   http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/04/the-bicycle-dividend/

Economy Being Affected by the Bulk

Reflection on week 3:

With week 2 being a downfall, I stepped up, and motivated myself in buying in bulk.  This week is going much better than the second week.  I have been succeeding in buying in bulk, but when I do I sometimes forget my reuseable bag.  When I do forget that, I then try to just carry everything (which can be difficult sometimes) to my car, or walk it all back to my place.  A positive is that I have been walking to the store rather than driving (I didn’t realize how close the stores were to my house until I had walked to them).  I think my PSP is a positive thing and helps eliminating packaging, but I do think it doesn’t affect the environment as much as my other peers PSP.  I do wish that I would have done something more important, and that improves the environment even more.  I think my PSP is something that would affect the environment if MANY people did it, one person can’t change everything.  Besides receiving a good grade for the PSP it is also important for me because it is a new promise to make, and a new goal to reach.  This PSP is testing me, and I am trying to prove to myself that I can do it.

Economic:  

This PSP has affected my wallet.  By buying in bulk I have had to spend more money in buying everything.  In the long run it will save me money, but right now it is costing me.  This bumps up the economy by putting more money into it.  If a big group of people were to buy in bulk, it would actually help the economy by pumping more money into it.  Also the demand for buying in bulk would increase causing more stores to start packaging in bulk more often.  The supply for packaging would decrease, because more products would be in bulk, and the single product will need to fulfill the bulk so we would need to either produce more, or the supply would be be less.

http://www.mrdashboard.com/Product_Life_Cycle.html

Buying in bulk will affect the product life cycle.  It will take less time to go through the stages when buying in bulk.  When a product is being introduced it will have to be advertised as a bulk product instead of a single item.  As it grows the company will need to make more of the product because demand will be very high.  It will also be very high when the product reaches the maturity stage.  But when it declines there will be more supply then demand, which can then lead to waste in a product that could potentially harm the environment.

Save money and save this planet, Why not?

I have always had coffee mugs and bottles but I just never really used them when getting coffee. When I decided on this PSP, I picked this one bottle from all of my many bottles. In order to remind myself to take it before I leave my house in the morning, I even stick the “interzone” (interzone is a café on Monroe that I always go for coffee) stickers on it.

My Coffee Bottle

It is actually not so difficult for me to do this PSP. All I need to do is to remember to bring this bottle before I go to school. One thing that really motivates me and keeps me doing this is that café gives you discount on drinks if you bring your own cup. A twelve ounce latte used to cost me 3.25 dollars in interzone but now, since I am using my own cup, it costs me 0.25 dollars less.

This is not difficult, but it is not easy either. If this is that easy then a lot of people would have been doing it. One thing hard about this PSP is that you have to have your bottle with you all the time. Last Wednesday, I went hang out with friends and I knew that I was getting coffee so I took my bottle with me. Since I wasn’t really going to class or anywhere, I didn’t bring my backpack with me but just that coffee bottle. All my friends found it weird because when we were getting dinner and ice creams, I had that bottle on my hands no matter where we went.

“According to the paper industry, Americans will consume an estimated 23 billion paper coffee cups in 2010.” (The Basic Problem with Coffee Cups, 2009) Also, “At the University of Washington, a college of roughly 42 thousand students, the Housing and Food Services Department estimates that 5000 paper coffee cups are thrown away every school.” (The Basic Problem with Coffee Cups, 2009) we really shouldn’t add up any more cups to this.

 

 (Click here to view clearer picture and more information. )

I also found this video very educational and motivating. It says if you purchase a cup of tea or coffee per day, you create 20 pounds of waste to the environment in a single year.

I would keep working on this PSP and wish me luck!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFCw3prbLw8

http://www.sustainabilityissexy.com/index.html

My “Triple R” Project

For my PSP Project, I’m going to eliminate waste and protect the environment by reducing, reusing and recycling as much as I can via specific actions in my daily life basis, and let’s call it a “Triple R Project”. 

This picture represents my theme

Why?

Before getting into a specific action for each category, I want to give reasons why reducing, reusing and recycling matter to me as well as every one of us. Recycling brings many benefits in term of environment and economy such as saving energy, maintaining natural resources, limiting pollution, and supporting several sectors of the economy (Brennan)

Here are some important statistics from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that will explain each of these benefits of recycling in detail (I just pick some of the extreme one in the article):

“In 2003, the energy savings from recycling 54 billion aluminum cans exceeded the energy equivalent of 15 million barrels of crude oil – or the amount of gas the U.S. uses in one day. Simple as recycling 1 can = 3 hours of TV, so in 2003 the U.S. saved enough energy by recycling cans to run 162 billion hours of TV, or about 25 hours of TV for every man, woman and child on Earth.” (Brennan)

“Americans disposed of 83 million tons of paper products in 2003. According to the EPA, by recycling nearly half of that, we saved 705 million trees and 290 billion gallons of fresh water.” (Brennan)

“The EPA estimates that 200 million gallons of used motor oil are improperly disposed of each year. Recycling used motor oil keeps it from polluting your ground and fresh water.”(Brennan)

“The National Recycling Coalition reports that recycling has created 1.1 million jobs, $236 billion in gross annual sales, and $37 billion in annual payroll.” (Brennan)

This information and numbers might be too boring to read, but if you take a minute and think about it in a larger scale. What is going to happen next if every single person keep wasting natural resources and pollute the environment with noticing or without noticing about their actions? It’s our environment, our planet, we are living on it and we are also destroying it (not the aliens) hour by hour, so don’t wait for anyone to save it because we are the only one can do it.

I found a peer-reviewed article, which talked about recycling paper, wrote by Trish Groves. Here is the link to this article. 

Actions

I already discussed the reasons why I’m doing this project, and why it matter to the environment, so now I will explain the detail action of what I’m going to do in the first week.

For my first R (reduce), I’m going to reduce using water by shutting it off while brushing my teeth. I know it might sound a little strange, but think about it. I brush my teeth twice a day, and 5 minutes each time, and about 2 minutes of brushing, so I can save up to 4 minutes of water running which equal about 8 gallons of water/day. I found a fun little clip, and you can click Use-Water-Wisely.aspx to watch.

For my second R (reuse), I will find my old papers which I used only one side of it, then turn back to the other side, and staple them all together. I’ll do a little design for the cover page to make it look nice, so I will have a “recreated” notebook to use. (I’ll add the picture of it when I’m done).

For the last R (recycle), I’m going to collect all of the water bottles/cans of soda and juice for a whole week, and then go to Fred Meyer and recycle them. I can also get some money from recycling bottles and cans.

Here is another video about recycling bottles.

Will it fit?

I think this project works the best for me because I’m a college student, I live on small budget, and so I don’t have much money to always buy new things. Moreover, doing this PSP project can help me live more sustainable, help the environment, and the most important thing is it’s not taking so much time or effort to do but has many benefits.

I feel so confident about what I’m going to do even though it may be out-of-order in a first couple days because I have to adapt to new habits, but I believe it will turn out fine, and we will see about that in the following week.

Here is another good peer-reviewed article that discussed strategies for water reuse

Make every day Earth day

Works cited:

Brennan, Jason. “Reasons Why You Should Recycle.” n. page. Web. 27 Jul. 2012. <http://www.affluentmagazine.com/articles/article/69/&gt;.

Groves, Trish. “Reduce, reuse, recycle .” 336(7650). (2008): n. page. Print. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2335226/&gt;.

Aerts, Peter, and Flora Tong. “Strategies for water reuse: membrane technologies increase the sustainability of industrial processes by enabling large-scale water reuse.” Chemical Engineering Sept. 2009: 34+. Academic OneFile. Web. 27 July 2012.