Sunday: Consumption

Today was the first day of No Impact Week! The focus of the day was consumption. The guidelines set out were to avoid buying anything unnecessary, and to try to buy second-hand items and make things yourself instead of buying things new.

Compulsive shopping isn't really a huge issue with me to begin with, and I feel that it's even less of an issue now that I'm living on a grad stipend. I'm usually pretty good about avoiding buying frivolous things in general, but I will admit that I don't think I give enough thought to trying to buy things second-hand. I enjoy going to thrift stores and scoring something I was going to buy new for a really great price, so I will definitely keep that option in mind for the items I was planning to buy this week. I would have actually gone thifting today if most shops weren't closed on Sundays and if there was something I needed to buy for this week, but right now I think I'm covered.

I started a reusable bag to track all the trash that I will accumulate for the week, and managed to throw away only one small piece of plastic wrap that was covering the bowl in the fridge of homemade salsa I had for dinner. I actually went the whole day without buying anything, since it was dreary outside and I decided to stay in and catch up on reading and studying. The only hard part of the day was the urge to go out and buy some falafel and hummus for a meal, but I decided to suck it up and eat what I had around the house. Besides, getting take out was likely to create styrofoam waste that I'd have to look at all week in my trash-tracking bag. So far, so good! Since each day builds on the next, we'll see if I can keep this focused for the rest of the week (though I will admit that it's sort of a cop-out when you don't leave the house).

Tomorrow I tackle: TRASH.

The No Impact Experiment

I think one thing I forgot to mention while writing my introductory post is that the more I live in the Triangle the more I seem to become a huge hippie. By this I mean I have started to use a bicycle as transportation, flirted with veganism (I am currently pescatarian), and recently started using mostly natural beauty products and toiletries. So when I heard about the No Impact Week put on by Colin Beavan and the Huffington Post, I decided to sign up and challenge myself to see just how far I was willing to go to be greener. In case you haven't heard of No Impact Man, it is a book and now a movie about one man and his family's year-long quest to live greener in the midst of New York City. I've been following his project for a little while, and feeling inspired by his dedication to his ideals and perseverance. At least, it certainly added to my enviro-guilt when I opted to drive a distance less than 2 miles instead of cycling or taking the bus.

I just took the pre-week survey for the No Impact Project, and since any good experiment starts with a hypothesis, I was prompted to write one. What I came up with was, "This week I will begin to take some steps towards forming daily habits that are better for the environment, my pocketbook, and my personal well-being." I'm hoping that dedicating myself to this completely for one week will make some of the changes stick around for while, or at least change my perspective (i.e. inspire more enviro-guilt).

A brief outline of the things I'll be working on each day of the week:

Sunday: Consumption
Monday: Trash
Tuesday: Transportation
Wednesday: Food
Thursday: Energy
Friday: Water
Saturday: Giving Back
Sunday: Eco-Sabbath

The week begins this Sunday, October 18th, and I'll be blogging about my progress here as my first series of posts on Science with Moxie.