Wednesday, April 6th:
So I'm on day 3 of my lived ethics project and by now I've started to realize that my project might seem a little harder than originally anticipated. If you haven't been following so far, what I am doing is as followed: I'm bringing my own plate, eating utensils, and cup/water bottle to all my meals. I am doing this in order to cut down on paper and plastic usage in my meals. I am also eliminating my use of the printer to print out papers for class and other activities. I have always preached to my friends and family to cut down on their waste and unnecessary use of paper and plastic goods. Because of my environmental values on how we should all contribute to minimize the impact of our waste on the planet, I underwent this mission.
But even though I thought this would be a very easy way to change my life, I came two original obstacles—forgetfulness and nervousness. This has how my meals have gone so far:
Monday:
• Breakfast: none
• Lunch: election day corndogs, no plates
• Dinner: Burger and fries on my own plate, no non-reusable cups used
• Snacks: nothing including plates, eating utensils or cups; many, many sour patch kids were consumed
Tuesday:
• Breakfast: nothing
• Lunch: chicken tenders and French fries on a paper plate ☹ (I forgot…), but no wax-lined paper cups used
• Dinner: brought my plate and cup
• Snacks: no plates, utensils or cups used
Wednesday:
• Breakfast: none, but was tempted to use Cheyenne Mountain Zoo cups and plates for a snack…
• Lunch: brought my plate and cup
• Dinner: cooked my own dinner
• Snacks: no plates, etc. used
So far I’ve done pretty well and hope I can keep it up. When I brought my plate to Benjis and asked them to put my food on my plate, I received some stares from the staff. At first it made me feel a little odd, but it ended up serving me a hefty amount of curly fries, something I can never reject. Talk about perks for being only a little more in line with my environmental ethical values on eating habits.
I thought today about the negative impact that my lived ethics project might have on the environment as well. I am switching over from using paper and plastic products everyday (specifically--cups, plates, utensils, printer paper) to more reusable and sustainable tools like computers and ceramic plates. But these require water and other cleaning costs. This means that I might also be expending a lot of water to clean my plates that could be otherwise thrown away and reused with paper plates. This alternative perspective does not seem sustainable, but I will try to monitor how much water usage I use in a day on my plates, cups, and utensils.
Furthermore, I thought that Terry Tempest Williams’ visit to CC was an important philosophical bolstering for my project. I could see how emotional she was about her presentation and could see how close a relationship she had established with the environment around her. Her poems on why she writes clearly exhibited her close relationship with nature. I am highly impressed with how she uses literature in order to try to promote conservation and wildlife protection. She serves as important model for my own project and other work I do in this class and the future. Her emphasis on the power of literature in effecting social and cultural attitudes towards the environment is inspiring. I hope that I can emulate her passion in my future pursuits to prevent further environmental degradation and tragedies to our global commons.
Thursday, April 7th: Slocum Spill ‘11
I have just gained first access to my blog post from my dead-screen computer. Now that my computer screen is broken and at the Apple store until Tuesday, I am operating off of my roommate’s computer. If I printed out my articles and wrote my notes on paper instead of on my computer, a lot of my problems after the computer spill could have been averted. This accident also tells us a little about sustainability efforts. Trying to be more sustainable—limiting paper use in this instance—can often be an inconvenience to daily life practices. I will tell more as the story unfolds. But for now I have gained a little more perspective into the darker side of the use of technology for something that could be substituted by paper products.
I find it very interesting that your computer damage made such a big difference in your project to create less waste. There are some things that we, college students, take for granted. Taking notes/reading/etc. on a computer screen is sometimes annoying but not a huge burden. For us, college students who are lucky enough to afford computers, we can make the change from paper to technology. However, much of the country and the world cannot afford to live the same way we do. I wonder how others who are less fortunate can change their lives in ways in which they can also reduce their impact on the environment. At the same time, do poorer people have as much negative impact as we have? In this case, does the fact that they don't have as much negative impact on the environment negate the fact that they may not have access to alternatives to their ways of life? Through thinking about your project, I wonder how affluence impacts sustainable living and what the prospect is to expanding your project to society as a whole, which seems to me is the only way to actually make a difference in averting environmental degradation.
ReplyDeletePhil,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I love your project idea. The number of paper plates that Benji's throws away alone must be in the upper hundred or thousands per day! So good job for not adding to that absurd number for the past couple weeks. The point you raise about water usage for cleaning the reusable utensils and plates is very interesting and one that I had actually not even considered while doing my project. Statistics comparing water usage for cleaning to water usage for making the paper or plastic products would be fascinating.
Additionally, I can completely empathize with your original obstacle--forgetfulness. There were a couple times over the course of the project where I would forget my reusable mug and ‘needed’ a coffee or tea to keep me going. Even with being able to walk our entire campus in less than five minutes, I did not have time to walk to back to my dorm and then back to Worner then to class. Reflecting on the instances in which I resorted to using non-reusable plastic cups, I began thinking about convenience. I was thinking about how much environmental degradation is caused by people partaking in actions purely because of their convenience. I thought about my actions throughout an average day. How many actions are performed through habit and convenience? Those are questions I will continue to ponder after this class and I hope you do too!