The past week, I took the Energy We Need challenge to reduce my consumption for Sustainable systems class. I pledged to reduce my impact this week. Despite a hectic school schedule, my sustainability efforts actually helped me to focus and finish projects.
As a Parsons student and photographer, it is easy to spend countless hours on my laptop. I didn’t realize how much time I spent on my computer until I completed the consumption survey. Now, I log my when I use the computer to control my computer time. Before writing an essay or working on a big project, I think through and plan my ideas in the sketchbook. To eliminate “vampire power” waste, I reorganized my desk so everything plugs into a power strip that I switch off when my electronics are not in use. This week, my reduced electronics time forced me to finish homework efficiently.
Grabbing take out food at the school cafeteria is a convenient but bad habit of mine. This week, I took the time to prepare my own meals to take to school. Plastic and paper takeout waste is easy to overlook but the waste from to go containers can quickly accumulate. Packaging accounted for 30% of municipal solid waste in America in 2012, 14% consisted of food waste. This past week I eliminated unnecessary plastic and paper waste by packing my own lunch for school. I am vegan for environmental and ethical reasons and was happy to see how much lower my kWh per day is on the “Energy We Need” survey but I had to take a step back and look at my entire impact. It took a little more effort but taking the time to pack a quick, healthy lunch of rice and veggies was an easy and satisfying way of eliminating unnecessary plastic waste. My next step as a green foodie is to join the 4th St Food Co Op for student friendly prices and environmentally friendly local organic groceries.
We all could benefit from thinking less like consumers and more like producers. As a fashion photographer, I will be promoting consumption. To justify and resolve this problem with my ecological values, I plan to promote only the environmentally conscious brands making quality products that last a long time. We should be conscious of how much we consume and use our creativity to produce, reuse and reduce. Image makers like myself constantly update our equipment to be on the cutting edge. It is important we use technology sustainably, buying high quality equipment and taking care of it. The United States alone produces about 3.3 million tons of hazardous high tech waste every year, 47.5 million computers are trashed and less than a quarter of them are recycled. E-waste is collecting around the world in toxic landfills at a rate of 40 million tons per year. We must make a better effort to reduce and reuse our electronics. To keep my impact to a minimum, I plan to maintain my equipment and wait until I can buy higher quality equipment that lasts longer.
This week, I pledged to reduce my consumption and become more aware of my waste to reduce my environmental impact. Though my efforts are small compared to our big environmental problems, we can all benefit from becoming more aware of ourselves and taking small steps to reduce consumption and waste.
Sources:
30% Packaging, 14% Food in Waste Generation 2012: EPA Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in the United States: Facts and Figures for 2012 http://www.epa.gov/wastes/nonhaz/municipal/pubs/2012_msw_fs.pdf
Digital Waste Figures
The Digital Dump. Project Info: “The Growing E-Waste Situation”, GOOD, website, 2010, USA. Data Source: CBS News; ABI Research; US EPA; Basel Action Network; Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. Research: Brian Wolford