3/29/15

First week complete.

After a week of recycling, rather teaching myself what could and couldn’t be recycled, I would call the week a success! Thursday my home’s now two bags full of recyclables will be picked up and diverted from a landfill. I was unaware that Aunt used to recycle, so we have adopted the routine back into our home since I have found the resources to do so.

Staying mindful and motivated can and probably will be an issue for me in these upcoming weeks so I should certainly avoid that and do my best to keep my Earth Month Spirit alive! As the upcoming week focuses on me eating less meat, I’m certain it will be the hardest as my diet has not been primarily vegetable based for some time now. I am looking forward to the change, and if it goes well I may also adopt this Earth Week Challenge into my lifestyle.

Here are some of the fun facts I accumulated over the week about recycling:

1. Once an aluminum can is recycled, it can be part of a new can within six weeks.
2. To produce each week’s Sunday newspapers, 500,000 trees must be cut down.
3. A modern glass bottle would take 4000 years or more to decompose — and even longer if it’s in the landfill.
4. The highest man made point in Ohio is said to be “Mount Rumpke,” which is actually a mountain of trash at the Rumpke sanitary landfill!
5. A single quart of motor oil, if disposed of improperly, can contaminate up to 2,000,000 gallons of fresh water.

For Earth month, my four weekly Earth month challenges are as follows:

Week 1: Begin Recycling. As I live off campus, recycling is not as readily available but I have already found the resources that I needed to begin this project. While this may not seemingly relate to food and water, I have mentioned in a previous post how the packaging from food can impact the Earth.

Week 2: Eat less meat this week. Mass production facilities use a massive amounts of resources. Break the cycle! As I’m not a vegetarian, this will be a challenge, but I’m capable.

Week 3: Begin composting. In my house we eat a lot of fresh foods and vegetables, and more often than not theres some left over that goes in the trash. If we can compost this, we can reduce run off contamination while still growing healthy gardens.

Week 4: Planting a garden! This week I will plant a small garden along my house to help reduce storm water run off in the upcoming spring months.