Share and Voice 3: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

This segment on Good Morning America is jaw dropping. It talks about all of the plastic going into our oceans, and staying in our oceans. It's outstanding that in their samples, there is 6 times more plastic than plankton. And the fish are eating these plastics. So if we eat these fish, are we eating the plastic too? Like they said, we need to accept responsibility, and take action at local levels to prevent this from continuing. Just awful!!!

Reflections: Weeks 5 and 6

To start off week 5, we had an eye opener from the CSPI website. It was amazing to see how much goes into the food industry and industrial farming and how harmful it is to the environment, and to the animals. I scored my diet using the amount of servings of animal products each week. I never knew that the things I ate were so bad for the environment, and just changing the amount of servings can be a huge impact on the environmental outcome.

We then watched "The Future of Food". It's crazy to think about the things that big corporations will do to take over everything and everyone. So many people's farms were taken over and they lost so many of their seeds and crops. I thought it was funny how they said that if things are genetically modified with their product, they own it. If a person was genetically modified with their product, would they own that person? I found that very interesting.

Week 6, we watched "Diet for a New America". I give John Robbins a lot of credit for not following in his father's footsteps and going in his own direction. He is leading people to healthier lifestyles instead of supporting an ice cream chain. Great work! We then worked on graphical headers for our blogs. I have a picture in my header, but I don't think it's a graphical header. I couldn't really find a program on my computer that can change the size of my picture so I just left it as is for now.

Eco-chic Lifestyle Change Week 3: Weekly Update

MY SMART GOAL

My SMART goal was to use a reusable water bottle instead of plastic bottles. I reused plastic water bottles beforehand, and realized I needed to change. Not only for my own health, but for the health of the environment.
"I will use an aluminum water bottle or coffee mug 100% of the time 7 days a week for the next 10 weeks"


SUCCESSES AND CHALLENGES
 
 My goal has been going great and I'm doing a pretty good job. I take my new bottle with me almost everywhere. It's hard at work because I work in a cafe and for safety purposes, we can't have any of our own foods or even water bottles inside the cafe, so I have to use a small plastic cup to drink out of. I do keep it in my locker and use it for each break, but I throw it away at the end of my shift. I still keep my bottle next to my bed at night to drink out of as well.
 
FEELINGS
 
Normally, I think of a "water bottle" containing only water, but I've had a cold for the past week and I bought a couple gallons of orange juice. So everyday before I leave for school, I fill my bottle up with orange juice. I think the inside of the bottle is stained yellow now. Oh well! My cold is getting better and I'm still using my bottle for nearly everything. I like the changes I have made and hope to keep them going even after the ten weeks is up! I'm sure I will!

Blogged for the Eco-Chic Lifestyle Change Week 3 hosted by Amy@Eco-Chic With Amy.

Share and Voice 2: Tour of WLSSD

For Dr. Tornabene's Community Health class, we took a tour of WLSSD. It stands for Western Lake Superior Sanitary District. It is located in West Duluth. First, we met in a conference room where a woman who worked there talked about the type of things that go on, and what they do with the waste, and certain materials you aren't supposed to throw away. Then for the tour, we had to wear hard hats and safety glasses. We got to see the chemistry lab where chemists look at the water to test it's cleanliness and we saw where the garbage trucks bring the garbage. It is then separated and stuff that needs to be recycled is put in it's proper place. There are also compost piles where they put old food and other materials to be composted. And finally they have a place where you can bring all of your items that you shouldn't throw away, like flourescent lights, paint, and other toxic wastes that shouldn't be put in the garbage.
I had never known that this place existed. I knew that they had sanitation places, but I never knew what they consisted of or where they were located. It was very interesting and a great learning experience!