Finished?

Not quite.  For the last month or so I have been waiting to post my final blog in order to get some things in order.  Mostly, it gave me a chance to propose these ideas to different communities I am involved in and reflect on their reaction.  Statistically speaking, Over the past three months I have saved about $45.  There are two different ways I was able to save this money. 

1 – Reduction in use of water bottles (only using one) = $25. 
2 – Avoidance of buying plastic items (mostly drinks) = $20.

Before this project, I would have at least one water everyday from packages that cost about $6 for every 24 bottles.  More often than not, I would buy other bottles for convenience in the price range of $1 to $1.25.  So, $25 is a rough estimate.

Also during this project, anytime I would be purchasing an item that was contained in plastic, I would avoid it and wait until I could make another choice.  For the amount of coffe, tea, other drinks, or food that I refused to buy, I estimate I saved at least $20. 

Both of these estimates are not very precise, and would vary for each person.  I’m not a large coffee drinker, in fact, I drink water most of the time.  So, for someone else who doesn’t drink water much but enjoys sodas and other flavored/caffeinated drinks – the result would be different.  However, there is no doubt that money would be saved here. 

Although I attempted to g out how this project looked for me financially, I reflect more on how much I did not consume when I could have made the simple and easy choice to do so.  My financial stats do not contain all of the to-go cartons I never used, the daily newspaper I put back on the rack (except for the crossword..), and it does not contain all of the efforts I made to make environmentally conscious decisions rather than ones for my own convenience.

In my communities I gained much more of a perspective of where my peers thoughts were.  Up until my last blog all my feedback had been from people who had never thought twice about recycling or their consumption levels.  When they heard what I had to say, I usually realized they had stopped listening as soon as I said the word, “recycle” or “reduce”.  I was plesantly suprised!  In my English class for example, I teamed up with another girl from my class to present ways to recycle on campus.  We did a presentation of all of the local opportunities here, and of all the ways you can reduce your consumption on a daily basis.  On the day of our presentation, out of all 6 groups that presented THREE were about environmental topics!  One even said that hybrid cars were just a capitalist ploy to get money, because in the longevity of their life they have 25% more emissions than normal cars.  WHAT?!  I have no idea where he got his information, but wow.  Is this true?  I haven’t gotten the opportunity to check around.  But my point is – I totally underestimated my classmates motives and ideas.  Needless to say, I was glad to know other people were at least thinking about their choices, and attempting to educate others. 

Another plesant suprise I had was finding out information that related so closely to this topic in the most unusual places.  I was coming out of one of the residence hall dining centers, and they were handing out bags.  They were reusable shopping bags.  And sure, we’ve all seen these before.  But it had some interesting information on it.  Zero paper bags can biodegrade in landfills because of the lack of oxygen.  Fourteen of the plastic bags contain enough petroleum to drive a care ONE MILE.  There website has other sorts of information and resources at www.onebagatatime.com. 

In the end, I have hope.  I have hope that we can turn this around, and do what is best for each other and the world that we live in.  Ultimately, we have to reduce.  That is the only thing that will help solve the problem.  Without it, we will always be searching for some sort of unknown solution with energy, recycling, and many other obstacles.  People will definitely say they support these actions, and even that they believe it is necessary.  But they must act.  Action is crucial if we want anything and everything that needs to happen become a reality. 

To summarize (but never finish), there is no such thing as “Out of sight, Out of mind” so let’s get rid of this idea.  We do affect what is going on in our waters like the collection of plastic waste in a plastic garbage patch.  We must act NOW.  We are never in this alone.

RALLY CRY: ONE PERSON CAN DO IT!

This is the End, my friends. And a New Beginning.

I loved this project. I hated this project. It was such a developmental, uplifting and rough time for me. I had to learn not only about sustainbility in eating but also sustainability in keeping myself accountable for the things I do in my life.

For instance, I told alot of people at my presentation today that I re-conceptualized my body as a battle ground, as a cite of protest and a starting point for sustainability. Before this project, when I thought about people hurting the environment with their actions I thought about people littering, not recycling. Now I know that eating, the very act of consuming is in itself a choice to be environmentally stable-or not.  Reducing your carbon footprint is as easy as reducing the amount of meat you eat. This doesn’t mean you have to be a hardcore (hXc) vegan or even a vegetarian 100% of the time (although I think it’s completely awesome when people choose those paths.)  It means you choose a meat-free dish once a day. Or you only eat meat three out of the four days a week.  These efforts alone can cut your carbon footprint by 25%, reducing several tons of C02 the average American would usually eat.

Vegetarianism was easy, veganism was more difficult, and local produce was nigh impossible for me, mostly because of travel and scheduling that week before spring produce was available. And although nature.org thinks that vegans produce 72% less carbon that meat eaters, I learned that the statistic might be flawed. For instance, vegans might rely on tofu, or tempeh, or veggie burgers for their main sources of protein. These have nearly as high a carbon footprint than does anything else–they require process, packaging, shipping, refrigeration, and are sent from a location to a central warehouse and then to your local supermarket.  The simple fact might be that if you’re only concerned about meat eating and C02 emissions, eating locally grown meat is the better and more sustainable choice. But as we pointed out–there are a multitude of reasons for eating or not eating meat. Some people cannot stand the cruelty done to animals. some people are worried about health. it’s all about balancing and making choice.

Those choices, however are important. To restate some statistics from an early blog post–there’s a lot at stake. 1/3 of C02 emissions comes from the food industry.  91 percent comes from methane and carbon production in farm management–this is largely factory farms and CAFOs. So yes, even eating vegetarian food cannot escape this statistic. However I am more aware of my body and my environment and how they interact with each other. I have gained a new sort of spirituality that helps me realize just how much control I have over myself and how I treat the world around me. I eat less meat, and sort of just see the world differently. It’s like a new lens in life. And I’m supremely grateful for this project and the new beginnings it’s provided me.

Random Window Farm Thoughts

This last weekend my window garden took a turn for the worse. I had to be out of town to finalize some post graduation plans in Chicago, where I am moving to, and while I was out of town my garden did not get watered. The red lettuce and chives both are not looking so well, but I believe that they will pull through. I have always had plants growing in my room and have seen them look worse then this before and they have always came back. I am hoping that this happens this time as well.

This does bring up a problem with my design of a window garden. The amount of soil in each bottle is small and therefore the amount of water it can hold is small as well. This means that I have to keep up with the watering or the plants will quickly die. I have been watering every other day or so, but over the weekend they went four days with out water. Just these four days made the plants look sick.

The window farming website does have some plans for building an automated watering system for those who are to busy to water everyday.

Also my last post I talked about a new question that I had come up with. I wanted to know how many trees would I have to plant to cancel out my CO2 emissions. That way I could eliminate all my CO2 emissions and be carbon neutral. Here is what I have found from reliable sources.

The average person in the United States emits 10,185lb of CO2 per year. (International Energy Agency 2009) And a tree absorbs on average 48lb of CO2 per year. (U. S. Department of Energy 2008) Which means I would have to plant 212.2 trees, a huge number but doable at the same time. Please note: This is rough average calculation with many variables not taken in to account and this is also for only one green house gas. With that said this still shows an interesting solution.

I find this to be a fun idea to play with in my head, trying to figure out if this is truly doable.

One last thing, last week I had an unexpected surprise come out of my garden. In with my red lettuce I had a foreign plant start to grow. After it got large enough I was able to identify it as a sunflower. A seed must have gotten mixed in with the potting soil. A sunflower is way to big to grow in a bottle, so I am trying to decide what to do with it. This is one of the things that I love about gardening. You never know what is going to happen.

I’m Ready!

Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.

1 Thessalonians 4:11-12

            According to my handy-dandy study Bible the apostle Paul wrote this sentiment in his letter to the people of Thessalonica in 51 A.D. – clearly, the notion of living simplistically is not a new one. Paul is considered by many to be the father of modern Christianity (aside from God and Jesus, just for clarification…) and a theme of living in a simplistic manner to please God can be found throughout the 13 epistles credited to him in the Bible. In Catholicism, avarice, envy, gluttony, and pride comprise the bulk of the seven deadliest sins of all, yet those are the principles upon which our culture and economy in the U.S. are founded. If Christianity and Catholicism, the most prominent and influential faiths in the U.S. and most other Western “civilizations”, advocate a life lived simply, why didn’t this become our standard of living? When did so many people agree that the pursuit and accumulation of STUFF, a stuff whose supply is limited and finite and whose production indelibly oppresses a silent majority for the comfort and benefit of the powerful minority, was the ultimate in human accomplishment and the answer to achieving satisfaction?

            I bring this up because I have spent a lot of time exploring my faith this semester. This class has been extremely challenging to me on a personal level because it has caused me to turn a critical lens on myself and my egregious over-consumption and wastefulness. Through this project of imagining how my life would have to adjust should Manhattan be affected by peak oil and global climate crisis I have discovered that I am capable of learning the necessary skills to lead a more simplistic existence. However, while a peak-oil crisis scenario is looming and may very well become a reality someday soon, right now my reality is that continuing a pattern of lazy over-consumption and wastefulness is the most convenient option, and despite all that I’ve learned, convenience is still too powerful a temptation for me to resist. I found that I needed another motivator, something to make simplistic living seem worth the trouble. I know that sounds terrible- the fact that I’m helping the environment and ceasing my participation in a violent and oppressive globalized capitalist system should be motivation enough, but it’s not. I have to alter my mindset, stop thinking of transitioning to a life of simplicity in terms of what I would be losing or sacrificing, but in terms of what I’d be gaining. Recently, it hit me. I’d be gaining an opportunity to rely more on my faith for strength and comfort.

            So, in the last leg of my project, this is what I have been working on. This wasn’t originally part of my plan for my project- working on my spirituality wasn’t on my to-do list at first, at least not for this class, but it ended up becoming a natural and necessary by-product of my explorations. I felt like I needed something to replace the sense of satisfaction I used to get from buying things, from driving for hours wasting gas, and from going out to eat every other night- again something that would make the “sacrifice” worthwhile. I decided to turn to faith, which I am learning leaves me so much more fulfilled than any of this other junk. After a while, my mindset is starting to shift and some of the other benefits of living simplistically are becoming more apparent and appealing:

Health: avoiding restaurants, especially fast-food, and processed foods shipped from who-knows-where will inevitably lead to healthier eating habits. Additionally, reducing my use of my car for transportation means more exercise and a happier, healthier heart.

Community: I have had to rely more on the people around me when I wouldn’t allow Target and Walmart to be the answer to all of my needs, which gave me the opportunity to get to know and find new appreciation for people in my life, like my house mother and cousins who raise goats and the interesting people who come to the Transition Manhattan meetings at UFM. Growing up, I never know my neighbors. You didn’t need each other so you just ignored each other. Looking back, I’m sad about this. Now, I’m so excited about the prospect of being connected to a community!

Time: As has been pointed out in class, living simplistically is actually quite time consuming. However, it gives you a chance to spend your time purposefully so you get more enjoyment and fulfillment from your daily activities and responsibilities. This applies too to the leisure time you are afforded. When I’m consciously working on living simply, reducing my energy usage, my free time activities are much more rewarding than staring blankly at a television screen or scrolling mindlessly through my facebook newsfeed.

Spirituality: As I said, this has been a big one for me. It has offered me a motivation and incentive for working to give up those things that are not only destroying the planet and oppressing millions of people, but also distorting my sense of purpose and self worth. I can re-examine what is truly important in the short time that I’m allotted and I can see how the pursuit of stuff becomes a huge distraction in living how I want to live and being who I want to be.

            Here at the end of my project, I’ve learned how to maneuver Manhattan with limited vehicle use, to sew and mend, and to cook from scratch. Now that I have the knowledge and I know I’m capable of learning the skills, now there is a matter of choice. I don’t want to wait until Manhattan HAS to transition to adjust to a crisis- I’m ready to begin transitioning myself, little by little. It’s a scary prospect, but I’ve found the motivation I need to start. I am in a place where I truly believe I could be happier living simply than continuing on the wasteful pursuit of stuff, and I’m excited about that.

For GREAT information on transition initiatives, visit http://www.transitionus.org

A Green Thumb and Good Intentions

My green thumb came only as a result of the mistakes I made while learning to see things from the plant’s point of view. ~H. Fred Dale

The last of life has withered out of all of my plants but the tomatoes. I left them with my mom as galavanted off to Northwest Florida to go stay with my sister for a week for Spring Break and they didn’t make it. The tomatoes did though, which makes me think that they are pretty tough plants and can definitely be grown indoors. My mom, of course, blamed herself for them dying and went and bought me new ones. My replacements are ones that are already raised and ready for transplant and I think I am going to plant them in the garden in my backyard rather than try to keep them inside. One reason is because it is beautiful outside and it gives me a reason to go out there. Also, when my plants began to die my mom set out to do some research and the most common answer she got was that the plants needed to in fact be planted outside.

Another reason is that we have ants right now and they are getting bad. For the most part, bugs in my house really don’t bother me, I know that sounds gross or whatever but they exist whether we see them or not and I’m over it. Unfortunately yesterday when I was watering my plants about a million ants went scattering in every direction and they were coming from the plants. This is a problem. I hurried up and carried them all outside trying to get most of the ants safely outside, sadly a few lives were lost.

Since I will be going to Florida for the summer, I have some friends who are really excited about taking advantage of a planted garden for the summer and my roommate and I will still be paying rent at out house so this shouldn’t be a problem. I will post some pictures next week of the planted garden, I plan on getting it all done by Wednesday evening.

I’ve concentrated a lot of communal living as an alternative living style. I realize communal living is not for everyone, so I’d like to introduce everyone to a couple of other concepts that might better suit different people.

http://earthfirst.com/7-amazing-handmade-eco-friendly-homes/

http://earthfirst.com/7-amazing-handmade-eco-friendly-homes/

http://earthfirst.com/7-amazing-handmade-eco-friendly-homes/

http://earthfirst.com/7-amazing-handmade-eco-friendly-homes/

You all should also check out Earthships (http://earthship.org/). I am not even going to post pictures because they can’t do them justice, they are truly sensational.

I think that it is important to remember that while all of these houses are beyond awesome, we do have a lot of houses around the United States that are already built and there are ways to make them incredibly sustainable as well. Most of all we need to work with what we have a make that as environmentally friendly as we can first and then move beyond that.

Community Intent More Than Action

Ever since I began this blog, I’ve been very vocal about my project and findings that have come along with it.  My friends are constantly noticing the millions of facts I continue to rattle off about waste.  I’ve  been explaining these findings to my communities and most people have been very responsive.

First I started by simply asking people what they thought about recycling. I asked people from my residence hall, classes, and even over the internet chatting.  Most people refer to this ‘being green’ as something they supported.  Statements were continually made about how recycling was “good” and that we needed more of it.  Some people however, said that they didn’t recycle and they really never thought much of it.  Global warming was something that they had no affect on, and people just needed to keep on living their life.  But, many general statements were made about how we are running out of resources and we need to do something about it!  That’s about where the conversation ended.  The final statements were general and there was no more discussion.  For the majority of people that I talked to they supported recycling and the efforts surrounding it.  But only with intention.  There was no action, no discussion of solutions, and no discussion of how we, the consumer, play a role with our waste. 

Particularly when I was saying the facts that I learned in class or from my project, I had emotionally engaged responses.  This is also when I found out the most about the actual actions of the people in my community and campus of K-State.  I heard from a girl in my English class that she was in a newly formed group that collected recycling after three of the football games this year when everyone left the stadium.  Now, remember, the local recycling plant only recycles plastics #1, and #2, reducing the amount that can actually be recycled.  In the three games they picked up after, they recycled more than 8 times the amount that our campus recycled in the last year.  WHAT?!  That’s unbelievable.  And no, I don’t know the exact figures because this is only word of mouth, but that number is astonishing.  Just think of how much waste that has been in the past and continues to be at athletic events?  And think of how many athletic events there are around the WORLD.  I wonder how much of that waste has ended up in the pacific. 

When I talked to my friend about this, I got to go a little more in depth about it.  Her intention is great - I mean, she really supports reducing and recycling (even though I still have to pull things out of the trash sometimes).  And I asked what she thought about the Pacific “Garbage Patch” or “Trash Island”.  She told me that when she first heard about it, it made her sick.  With more explaining, she told me she wished more people knew about it.  Yes, I totally agree.  I wish more people knew about it!  But would that change anything?  I mean, she still knows, but that doesn’t keep her from putting cardboard/plastic cups in the trash.  And it doesn’t stop other people from buying more and more things continuing the cycle of consumption to waste.  So would this knowledge of the Garbage Patch change anything?  A professor here teaching one of the most popular classes at K-State always mentions this topic (which is how I found out about it).  How many of those people are moved to reduce, reuse, and then recycle?  If we’re going off of the ratio of my friends who took that class and found out, the answer would be not many. 

I’ve come to the conclusion that most of the commuties here, or at least the one’s I’m involved in, have big intent to make changes and reduce the waste of plastic.  However, the actions are lacking and it’s leaving a large impact on our world.  This is what has to change.  Action is needed. 

Action is NECESSARY. 

Question of the day: What’s your trash bin made out of?  Plastic?

I should have informational pamphlets.

On Tuesday, we had a speaker come in to talk about different environmental issues.  In his handouts it had the statistics that we throw away 40 million water bottles in the US per day. WHAT?!   That’s 14,600,000,000 a year.  Imagine how many of those are floating in the Pacific Ocean (let alone our own landfills and waterways).  Well this certainly encouraged me to continue with this personal change I’ve implemented.  Such as not using water bottles!  In the last week I have given up the usage of water bottles.  I live in the Residence Halls, so at first I thought this might be a large feat.  But I’ve started using one cup to keep fresh water in from the water fountain down the hall.  I’ve also stopped getting drinks to go, to reduce my consumption of plastic.  That was a huge way I was consuming – using plastic cups getting drinks wherever I went.

Recycling isn’t really the best option here, because it takes so much energy to do so!  This is why I believe reducing the use and consumption is crucial.  Recycling is important once the plastic needs to be disposed of, but with the reduction in how much we use then there won’t be as much plastic that exists!  It reminds me of the supply and demand theories.  Without the demand, companies will not supply.  Without the demand, companies know that they won’t make money on a product – in the end, they do not produce it.  Hence, reducing consumption is key.

Yesterday was the first day that I bought any type of container in about a week, and yes, it was a water bottle.  Not getting as many as I used to (which was about one a day) has saved me loads financially.  Although I know my project isn’t about my financial gain, this has still been a definite part of the aftermath of my reduction in use of these plastics.

I’ve also stopped getting food to-go unless I undoubtedly have to, which can usually be avoided by good time management.  There are many ways to get paper covers on food to-go (that you can recycle) and you can also take your own containers to restaurants.  Both of these options reduce the use of plastic.  In the remaining time of this project I plan on implementing many personal changes in reduction of my use as I’ve done in the examples above.    The list consists of:

- NO USING WATER BOTTLES
- Always eat food on dishes I can wash
- Avoid purchasing plastic items at all costs

My mode of attack: Reduse and reuse, and in the end, RECYCLE.

There are so many options, that it shocks me when talk of the difficulties of this task arises.  YES, it is definitely not as simple as just dumping it in the trash, but with so many options (especially to reduce…), why not make the change?!

Whew!  I may or may not have done a ton of repeating myself in this entry.  But all for clarifications sake – right?

I’ll keep you updated on how the personal change continues!

The thimble was always my favorite Monopoly piece

Story time:

 Back in November I got in a fight with a wall. Seriously, I was totally minding my own business then out of nowhere it just attacked me and my favorite pair of jeans. I know, how rude. The battle was epic, but eventually I emerged victorious, though the conflict was not without casualty. My poor jeans, the only jeans that on the first try were not too tight on my thighs but too loose on my hips, my most slimming pair of jeans, my FAVORITE pair of jeans, fell victim to the wall. It was truly tragic.

 Ok, so I have a flair for the dramatic. In reality I was walking home from a party and to save time I cut through some backyards that were separated by about a three and a half foot cement retaining wall. I tried to be really skillful and just step up with my left leg rather than be lame and clumsy and climb up on my hands and knees. Unfortunately clumbsiness is totally my default state of being, so the right thigh of my jeans got caught on the wall as I tried to stand up, ripping my jeans and leaving a two inch tear in the fabric.

 Normally I would have just thrown the jeans away, gone to American Eagle the next day and thrown away $45 on an identical replacement pair, then spent the rest of the week kicking myself for spending so much money because really, I don’t have that kind of cash to just throw around. Irresponsible, that’s what that would have been. And wasteful. But anyways, this was in November, before the beginning of this class and before this project, but I couldn’t bear to throw these jeans away. Not because I was concerned about the wastefulness at the time (sorry), but because they were my favorite pair- they really were great jeans. So for months I’ve just had these ripped jeans lying around for no good reason. Then I took this class and developed this project and week number two of my reskilling adventure was sewing and mending: light bulb! Why should I throw away a perfectly good pair of jeans just because they have a teeny tiny little rip in them? Because I didn’t know how to mend them and I didn’t want to take the time to learn and in our society this generation would rather throw away insane amounts taken-for-granted cash than walk around in hand-mended clothing (how embarrassing, right?). Sewing and mending, I feel, is quickly becoming a lost art form. My mother sewed her own prom dress as a teenager, not to mention all of my childhood Halloween costumes and countless adorable one-of-a-kind outfits. Unless I start learning to sew now, my hypothetical future children will never own any clothing that are not store bought, generic, and energy consuming. And they will always have to throw away every pair of ripped jeans, and Lord knows childhood sees its fair share of ripped clothing. Time to stop the wasteful madness! Time to learn some skillzzz. Word.

 My mom lives 12 hours away in Cincinnati so learning to sew from her for this project would have been totally impractical, but part of the reskilling, transition community philosophy is to take advantage of the often hidden local resources that already exist at our finger tips, we just don’t utilize them because Walmart is more convenient. So, turns out my Kappa housemother is a sewing wiz, the kind of person who quilts and enters sewing projects into art shows- who knew. She’s an incredibly busy woman but she generously donated her time to teach me how to mend my jeans and sew a pillow. Sewing is surprisingly simple! I mean, a pillow is nothing more than a rectangle, so I’m sure it gets much more complicated when making clothing, but sewing is really one of those skills where a basic foundation of knowledge can really get you far. When I figure out how to upload pictures onto a post, I’ll show off my beautiful work, get excited. I really hope that this skill will help to reduce my consumption by allowing me to hold on to clothes longer, even when they get a little beaten up. And I get to wear my favorite jeans again!

 Next week’s reskilling mission: COOKING from whole ingredients (cue ominous music: DUN DUN DUN!!! I’ll keep the Manhattan fire department on standby.

K-State PROUD! …of waste?

Please, don’t get me wrong, I am in full support of raising money to give students awards that cannot financially afford to attend our school.  But do we need a plastic bracelet packaged in an individual baggie (not sure how to spell that), and about 100 of those in a larger plastic bag, packed with about 6 other large bag in a cardboard box?  Consume, Consume, Consume – that’s all I’m seeing now adays. 

With these thoughts constatly running through my head, I have to wonder what our own waste amounts to.  According to <http://www.learner.org/interactives/garbage/solidwaste.html> the United States trash amounts to 4.6 pounds per person every day.  That’s 230 million TONS per year.  Of these tons, less than one-quarter of it is recycled.  Also more than 70 percent of landfill waste could be recycled.  Unbelievable.  All those times I thought to myself “oh, it’s just one water bottle I’m throwing away…” the rest of the country was too.  I thought the garbage patch in the middle of the ocean was bad with only 7 million tons.  But 230 million?  Where has all that gone?!?  Out of sight, out of mind.  It’s all still there in landfills around our nation (in this case, not even including the WORLD).  If we could recycle the full 70 percent in landfills, what kind of difference would that make?  A huge one. 

But how do we recycle if we don’t have the outlet?  What do we do with our potentially recyclable objects?  At Howie’s Recycling Center (www.howiesrecycling.com) here in Manhattan, only a portion of what can be recycled is actually taken:

aluminum cans

food & beverage glass

plastic jugs & bottles
#1 and #2 only

steel cans

paper/magazines

cardboard

newspaper

aluminum

copper

brass

stainless steel

lead

steel

transmissions

radiators

car batteries

So do we hold onto our plastics or throw them into the garbage can?  We know what that answer is for most of the population – including what that has been for myself.  This is one of the frequently asked questions he posts:

Why should I consider recycling?
- Recycling eases the landfill burden.
- Recycling saves energy and natural resources.
- Recycling reduces litter and contributes to a cleaner environment.
- You get paid for it!

“You get paid for it!”  Really?  The answer to consider recycling is to get paid for it?  I’m definitely not trying to knock on Howie here, but its eye-opening to see that the incentive for reducing our destruction is to get paid.  But that begs the next question.  Do we continue to use this incentive for people if we want them to change their understanding of the earth’s resources. 

I continue to be confirmed in the way that a huge issue is the theories behind consumption.  Or perhaps a more fitting statement would be the lack of theory.  If we get paid for recycling, then what promotes the ideas of reduction of use?  What encourages the population to use materials that will decompose and not filled with chemicals?  And what about the plastics that can’t be recycled?  For example, all those little baggies holding the bracelets for K-State Proud.  What promotes us to reduce how much plastic is used in that situation? 

By gaining this knowledge, I’m reflecting on this topic of how our waste amounts in Manhattan.  What am I putting into a landfill?  How could I reduce my consumption?  How does Manhattan affect the Garbage Patch in the Pacific Ocean?  How can I make an impactful difference in my ways? 

These are questions I’ll be asking myself as I make personal changes.  I’ll keep you updated.

eat rice have faith in women

eat rice have faith in women
what i don’t know now
i can still learn
if i am alone now
i will be with them later
if i am weak now
i can become strong
slowly slowly
if i learn i can teach others
if others learn first
i must believe
they will come back and teach me
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
slowly we being
giving back what was taken away
our right to the control of our bodies
knowledge of how to fight and built
food that nourishes
medicine that heals
. . . . . . . . . . .
eat rice have faith in women
what i don’t know now
i can still learn.

-fran winart