My second Earth Month Challenge week was a big improvement on the first week. I decided to make my challenges cumulative so I continued to lessen my waste by buying fewer products with excess packaging. For my second week, I lessened my waste in a new way by ending my use of disposable coffee cups. Instead, I either went without coffee or used a thermos when I bought drip coffee. This presented a different kind of problem because I would get caffeine headaches when I didn’t get coffee. This helped me realize that I drink too much of it, a helpful realization. There was also one time I bought the disposable cup without realizing that it violated my challenge for the week so it helped me realize that I need to learn how to break some daily habits in order to be more environmentally friendly.
I also still had some problems with my challenge from the first week, since finding products with little packaging is particularly difficult. However, I ate at dining halls more often this week in order to avoid buying products with excessive packaging. I learned a lot about how my daily habits are harmful to the environment and in order to be more environmentally friendly, I need to break a lot for these habits, something that is good for both the environment and me. Next week, I plan to buy organic and all natural products in order to focus on lessening my toxicity. I think this coming week will be a much easier challenge if I were to buy things off campus, however it might be quite a difficult challenge while on campus.