Final Blog Reflection

My experience this summer with my Personal Sustainability Promise to ride my bike to workouts and class instead of choosing to drive was a good one. I feel good because of the fact that I’ve done something to reduce my carbon footprint and lower my Greenhouse Gas emissions. I made the transition from driving daily to riding a bike seamlessly, it was a 10-15 minute bike ride but with the weather we’ve been having its been great to be outside in the sunshine. The only time it was difficult was when we had workouts in the early afternoon and we would get done in the heat of the day and then I had to ride my bike home despite being extremely hot and tired.

If I continue my PSP, I will continue to contribute to lowering the carbon footprint of automobile emissions. This is helping environmental change in a positive way. I don’t feel like my PSP has made an impact on my life socially as regardless of my mode of transportation, I would be by myself either way. If I continued my PSP I’m not sure if I would have a global impact on the environment, but it would at least hopefully inspire people to follow my decision to lower the carbon footprint of ourselves. If other people adopted my PSP, we could have a large impact on environmental change and possibly lower the global temperature and stop the melting of polar ice caps.

My family was already doing my PSP before I adopted it, my parents are both avid bicyclists and ride bicycles most of the time when they get around town. Most of my friends live close to our facility already so they walk or bike to workouts already. I will probably continue my PSP until the weather gets too cold to comfortably ride a bicycle consistently. I think other PSP actions that I could add to my life could be putting a better effort towards turning off lights in rooms I am not using.

Looking back on this experience, I learned that iit doesn’t take very much effort to lower your carbon footprint and make a positive impact on our environment. There are countless sustainable actions that you could take any day to lower your carbon footprint, and a small action goes a long way if you can get other people to buy into sustainable choices.

Last time for PSP, say bye to GEO, say bye to bottled water!

Over all my experience with the PSP was great, and I really liked it, and I hope can continue what I have done for the PSP too.

The environment effect of my change is that from the website of the huffingtonpost.com says that the plastic bottles will break into some pieces over time, and all the small pieces will absorb toxins that can pollute our water, and soil and also will sick the animals.

At the same time, they will take almost centuries to decompose them, which is really crazy. But during the last week of the PSP, its true that I have been awhile didn’t buy plastic bottles, but sometimes when the weather gets really hot, I order some Starbucks coffee with plastic bottles, and also buy some soft drink from the market that also with plastic, which is harmful too, so I decided to buy a reusable bottle from Starbucks then I will use that bottle to drink coffee.

Also, the Starbucks also says that if you bring your cup they will have a discount for your coffee too, I think it’s a good idea too help people to save the environment.

When I always go to the Winco with my friends or boy friend, I tried to persuade my friends not to buy it, and they listened to me, which is really cool I think.

Last, I think last four weeks of the PSP, it helped me to save the environment and also helped me so save my money; I almost saved thirty dollars for not buying water bottles! When I use to not buying bottled water I think I still will continue with PSP even the class is over!

Work cited:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/norm-schriever/post_5218_b_3613577.html

Pictures:

http://origin.firstcoastnews.com/money/onyourside/article/290230/6/Starbucks-reveals-1-reusable-cup-to-curb-trash

Green Laundry, Clean Laundry, part 4

As always, for history of my green laundry project, click here.

My experience was great! It was not that hard to make such a simple change that can have a beneficial impact on the environment. If you combine the statistic I found this week

For a little more specific perspective, I showed this graphic a few weeks ago:

However I found more information related to it this week. According to a study, heating the water uses 80-85% of the energy (Sabaliunas, 2006) of the washing machine energy consumption. If you combine that with the EPA’s information from the graphic, that is savings of about 487kwh, on average, just for doing cold washes. I see no reason not to do this, and I will surely continue to do so! If everyone started doing this we could reduce our energy use quite a lot. This would allow us to scrap more dams, or use less coal, etc. The environmental impacts are far-reaching.

I have already encouraged my roommates and a few friends to start doing this. One already did, and others are considering it now! However, now there are plenty of suggestions I can take from others too. Some of these other PSPs have given me great ideas. I already have reusable water and coffee cups, but I might buy a used road bike and start traveling to work or school a few days a week on it. I learned that documenting my experience and being accountable to my promise made me much more likely to stick to my PSP.

References

Energy Star. Web. 3 July 2015. <http://www.energystar.gov/sites/default/files/assets/images/ES_Appliance_Energy_Use_pie_graph_822 14-large.jpg>.

Sabaliunas, Darius, Charles Pittinger, Cristy Kessel, and Patrick Masscheleyn. “Residential Energy Use and Potential Conservation Through Reduced Laundering Temperatures in the United States and Canada.” Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management 2 (2006): 142-53. Web. 18 July 2015.

Overall Great Experience !

Overall I had a great experience with this PSP, not only has it become a habit now to ride my bike everyday but I am also saving more money while at the same time helping our environment. I learned a lot about different ways to save energy and different ways I can change my consumption ways to receive and give benefits. 

By riding my bicycle I have lowered my household emissions, reduced pollution by not using gas, cut down on my health care cost by being more productive. After calculating my PSP I came to conclusion that I will save about $1,500 on gas each year, $550 on my health care a year and help reduce my household emissions by about 7% reducing pollution and saving energy. If others started to do what I have been doing, according to my footprint we would only need about 2 planets to have enough resources. This is good because before my PSP my footprint showed 5 and a half planets! I could easily involve my family and friends by sharing the amount of money they could save and also telling them how much they are helping towards these environmental problems that are currently growing. Although my experience was great, I still had some negatives while doing this. For example, whenever I went to the grocery store it was very hard to choose what I wanted to get because it limited my choices having a bike. Another negative was being fatigued and sweaty in class on very hot days, which got very uncomfortable sometimes, but this will not stop me from continuing my PSP. 

It is a lot more convenient for me and beneficial, I will continue to share my knowledge with others when I can and bring awareness to the problems we are having today with our environment and how we can help!

sources for images: http://www.pedbikeinfo.org/programs/promote_bikeshare.cfm

http://www.bayareabikeshare.com

Cycle More, Live Healthier Pt.4

After four weeks of cycling to school, I can feel the difference my personal sustainable promise (PSP) made to me. Cycling 2.5 miles everyday might be challenging but I manage to keep doing my PSP every weekdays.

My cycling path. Every weekday I have to cycle uphill.

Impacts

There are several environmental and social impact that I could identify. The environmental impact that is I have less CO₂ emission. My Car currently has a gas consumption of averagely 18 mpg, if you do the math and convert it to gram of CO₂ per km, it will be around 303 g/km CO₂. And if you do the math again to kind out my CO₂ emission per round trip to school, it is 1212 gram of carbon dioxide was emitted every school day.One of the largest CO₂ emitting transportation is personal car, which is much more than riding subways or walking (Morabia, 2009).

There has been also some social impact that I have realized, which mostly are health benefits. Cycling every weekdays have made me more fit than before. Believe it or not, I loss 12 pounds since I started this PSP 4 weeks ago.I also felt that my stamina has increased every time I cycle.

There are several negative impacts such as being too exhausted every time I finished cycle, and it makes me unable to concentrate at classes. You could counter act this negative impact by going to class earlier, so you could take your time cycling and also bring a lot of water to hydrate yourselves. Other negative impact is cycling also takes a lot of time. I usually start going to class earlier to make sure I arrive class in time.

Make a Change

Follow my PSP, lets make a change. Use your bicycle more than your motorized vehicles, and also more than public

Photo Credit: http://www.eta.co.uk

transportation. Governments will reduce quantity of public transportation and it will reduce CO₂ emission by a lot. Other

people will also follow our eagerness to decrease greenhouse gases (GHG) by cycling also. Make it happen by starting it now.

Make it fun, don’t force yourself to do it. Ask your friends and family to cycle with you. Find a cycling buddy!

Reference

Morabia, Alfredo, Philippe N. Amstislavski, Franklin E. Mirer, Tashia M. Amstislavski, Holger Eisl, Mary S. Wolff, and Steven B. Markowitz. “Air Pollution and Activity During Transportation by Car, Subway, and Walking.” American Journal of Preventive Medicine 37.1 (2009): 72-77. Web.

The Asphalt Sabbath: A Religious Cult?

Transfagarason, Romania

After completing my personal sustainability promise for 3 weekends, I go to church.  By not driving on Sundays, I’ve managed to be more efficient altogether with driving by making my trips more concise and planned.  I now only drive when I absolutely need to.  This promise to self has opened my eyes on how easily attitudes change.

In addition to cutting out driving, I have been carpooling a lot more as well.  Riding a bicycle has also offset my short range driving as well.

My weekly estimated savings are at $10, and a little over $500 on a yearly basis.  I’m also reducing fuel consumption by at least a gallon and a half a week, and lowering carbon dioxide emissions by roughly 1000 lbs.

Cars drive on an eight lane expressway in Beijing on January 29,2013.

If everyone in the U.S. were able to cut a day of driving per week, over 400,000 gallons of fuel could be saved per day!

55 gallon drums of petroleum

References

http://360romania.com/tag/transfagarasan/

http://www.wired.com/2008/03/home-made-carbo/

http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=307&t=11

http://www.zmescience.com/ecology/environmental-issues/china-smog-30012013/

http://naecnigeria.org/mag/?p=449

Keep Up the Good Work

I have done my Personal Sustainability Promise (PSP) of reducing plastic waste for four weeks. So much effort and time I have spent to do my best to reduce plastic waste.

I committed to this PSP because I was aware that plastic cause many environmental, social, economic impacts. In addition, 300 million tons of plastic are produced around the globe each year and 50% of this are disposal plastic packaging. However, in the U.S, 4.6% of annual petroleum consumption goes to plastics production. None of this energy is recovered when plastic waste is disposed in landfills. In fact, in 2008, 86% of plastic waste ended up in landfills (North, 2013).

My lifestyle has changed since I committed to my PSP, such as:

• I do not buy any bottled waters anymore. Instead, I always drink from my reusable water bottle and fill it from water fountains.
• I do not buy any beverages that are sold in disposal plastic bottle anymore. Instead, I buy beverages that are sold in can or glass.
• I do not use disposable plastic bags anymore to keep my food. Instead, I use reusable containers.
• I do not use plastic straws and lids anymore when I buy soda from fountains.

So, after changing my lifestyle for four weeks, I have saved $5 from disposal plastic bags, and $50 from bottled water. I have contributed to decrease the plastic debris that flows to the ocean. Also, I have reduced so much plastic waste that would go landfill.

However, I believe that more people that follow this kind of lifestyle will give greater benefit to our society and environment. By reducing a lot of our plastic waste we can save some money from reducing trash transportation fee, and some land that is used for landfill. Thus, we will have more land to grow crops and provide other human needs such as houses, education, and recreation.

So, my strategy to engage my family and friends into this lifestyle is by keep reducing plastic waste, showing them my blog posts, sticking up some reminders on walls at my apartment and my parents’ house. Also, I would like to buy some reusable bottles for my parents and siblings.

REFLECTION:

It has been four weeks and I learned so many things from this PSP. It opened my eyes that our activities and lifestyle have impacted our environment and society. We are all connected, and we have the same responsibility to make the earth a better place to live in. Beside that, this experience show me that with courage and persistence I can make a great change and benefit myself, my community, and my environment.

So, let’s change our lifestyle and choices to be more sustainable!

Reference:

North, Emily J., and Rolf U. Halden. “Plastics and environmental health: the road ahead.” Reviews on environmental health 28.1 (2013): 1-8.

Saving Water To Save The Planet

This PSP I partook on throughout the duration of this class has been tougher than I ever thought it would be. Saving water sounds as simple as cutting back on what I already do, but it is more complicated than that. It involves a change in an entire lifestyle, a change that I’m not sure most people can make. There have been multiple social effects along with environmental effects that came with my participation in this PSP. First and foremost, throughout the past 4 weeks my monthly water bill has significantly reduced. Secondly, I’ve been questioned by a few people as to why i do what i do, such as not flushing after I pee. Even after explaining my mission to some, they still find it a little awkward. If I were to continue this PSP for the rest of my life, i think i would make a huge individual impact on my surrounding environment, but not much on the global environment.

I am just one man, for my PSP to impact the world globally, I need more participants to embark on this mission. If others were to begin participation, I think we can go a long way in ensuring the world’s sustainability. When it comes to my family and friends, they are not really into sustainability as a matter of fact they could care less. In order to get them involved i would have to persuade them in some way., maybe have a bribe and a prize for who saves the most water. I would have to think if I want to continue this PSP or not. It takes a lot of energy and reminders in order for me to change my natural habits, but then at the same time it is rewarding knowing i am doing the east some good as well as saving money. As far as other PSP actions, I’m not really sure what else i could do. I would have to research each and every one to really determine what best suits my lifestyle. Throughout this course, I learned that you leave a footprint on this earth based on how you choose to live your life, the lower the footprint the better. Unfortunately, most US citizens’ footprints are unusually high because of the luxurious life we are privileged to live. Taking small steps to reduce your footprint goes a long way in sustaining the planet, and can go a long way in bettering your surrounding environment.

Sources: http://www.sustainableunh.unh.edu

The Fight Must Go On

My entire experience was a challenge, to constantly remind myself not to turn on lights until a certain time was a lot harder then I thought it was going to be for me.  When I first started it wasn’t so bad really, but these last 2 weeks I have just been urging to turn on one of the lights when it is 7 o’clock or 8 o’clock, instead of waiting for it to be around 9ish when the sun is finally starting to disappear and there are no lights. Saw that my social change was people complaining about turning the lights on which made me want too and the other didn’t have to do with my environment, mainly economic for me.  Keeping up with my PSP will affect globally by saving energy that may needed for something more important, Im not saying energy isn’t important to me because humans need energy to survive too, but there my be some catastrophic emergency that occurs where they need all the energy in the world for that reason.  If others started doing the same as me, they would see a large change in their economic area, they would have a decent amount being saved for them to use for a different reason.  I would involve others by just telling them to try this out, not turning the lights on until it gets to a certain point at night.  I will continue with my PSP because it is the best thing to be doing that is helping me with money.  Other PSP’s I may start trying is getting drapes to cover the house, keeping it cool and shaded during the summer, I might try and get a foam insulation so that keeps my apartment from heating up to much and I think I want to try and get the energy saving light bulbs if that is possible for me too.  I learned that if you truly stick to doing something, that it will happen and you will love the reward in the end.

http://www.lamprecycling.com/articles/when-to-turn-off-your-fluorescent-lights.aspx

Eco-Trend: Ride on Bike Infinitely

Experience

My PSP is ride a bike to school 5 days a week. I actually ride a bike every day, I have a good feeling about myself to finish a month personal sustainable promise. At present, I have developed a riding on bike habit , however, I faced some difficulties on the first week. It’s hard to accept new things, especially developing a new habit. I always feet tired, this situation changed on second week; I slowly forget drive my car, and began to enjoy riding a bike to campus, Dixon, and other places. On the third week, I watched some competitive bike videos online, and I was interested in competitive bike, and began to try it, however, it’s really hard for me. On this week, I ride a bike to anywhere, and did some training for the competitive bike. I hope I can participate a bike competition in the future.

Pic Credit: https://thenypost.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/obesity.jpg

Pic Credit: http://icdn.pro/images/en/g/r/green-arrow-pointing-down-icone-9508-48.png

Pic Credit: http://content.backcountry.com/promo_upload/cc/promos/2015/strava/strava-banner-2.jpg

Impact

First of all, I’m very happy to develop a new hobby, it’s not only a personal sustainable promise, but it’s also a healthy interest for myself. Otherwise, It improves my stamina. At the beginning, I felt tired early when I probably ride a bike for 20 minutes, however, I feel relaxed when I even ride a bike fast for 1 hour. This is a pretty good improvement. I am very surprised about it, and will keep do it. Finally, according to a journal on endocrine website, riding on bike is a good way to avoid obese, and that article suggest that adults ride on bike for 60 minutes and children ride on bike for 20 minutes, and they can avoid the unhealthy effects of obesity. I will persuade my friend to ride on bike with me in the future, and after they ride a bike, they can improve stamina, and reduce the epidemic of obesity.

Reference

• Pictures:

• August, G., Carprio, S., Fennoy, I., Freemark, M., Kaufman, F., Lastig, R., . . . Montori, V. (2013). Prevention and Treatment of Pediatric Obesity: An Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guideline Based on Expert Opinion.The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 93(12). http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.proxy.library.oregonstate.edu/10.1210/jc.2007-2458