Colin Beaven has defiantly made an effect on many peoples life styles, and recently mine as well. For the next three weeks I will be partaking in a few environmental aiding activities in hope to increase awareness and lower my carbon foot print. The first ‘project’ I will be doing is drastically lowering my television use. This means I am letting myself do a few things such as continuing to watch anything on disc's, for example movies, but if the movie isn’t playing the television is unplugged. I am also allowing myself to watch television if needed at other people houses because it is their carbon footprint and not my own. I decided to do this because I watch way too much television. I watch re-runs of re-runs; constantly have the television on unless I have something better to do. By unplugging my television when it is not in use, I could save as
much as 9 kWh per year. Which is significantly lowering my carbon footprint, as well as saving me bit of cash, not much, but a small amount.
Secondly, I will be advancing the use of my organic garden. The organic garden that we have at my house is pretty 'limited' at the least to say. We currently grow herbs, tomatoes, and raspberry. By expanding on this I am in hopes of growing an additional vegetables such as; cucumbers, lettuce/cabbages, beets, onions, squash and broccoli. Since the growing season, really shouldn’t start until the weekend of May 24
th, I intend on growing my vegetables in boxes inside, until its significantly warm enough for my vegetables to succeed. Looking in your local supermarket, maybe, one or two name brand will be certified organic. This means that there must be a label with ‘COG 2011’ on it, not just copy right named branded ‘Organic,’ which is what many companies to do their products now. This is the tricky part, for example I do my part in buying certified organic food and products, and so while I was at Shoppers looking for make up, I saw a new brand on the shelf. The name was you guessed it, ‘Organics.’ Well, I took this mascara bottle and looked for the certified organic label on it, and much as I presumed it was no where in sight. So advancing my organic garden will stop putting pesticides into my body, lessen the amount of chemicals being put into the troposphere. Hopefully my organic garden as well will be noticed by my neighbors and keep the aware about their food decisions. Lab tests and industry disclosures indicate that 60-75% of all non-organic Supermarket foods now ‘test positive’ for the presence of genetically engineered ingredients. This means that none the less you are putting pesticides into your body (assuming a large company that modifying its seeds, are using pesticides) but you are no longer eating the same dna that an apple would have had, maybe four or five years ago. As I was telling my mom about my Environmental & Resource Management’s class’s take on Colin Beaven’s project she said she would do her part in only buying the organic line of cleaning products. This means the product was made with plant-based biodegradable cleaning ingredients, with no harsh chemical fumes or residue, and to top that off it was never tested on animals. Now the affect of not using theses harsh chemicals would be incredibly hard and possibly impossible to detect how much chemicals we are saving from putting into the environment, but if we stop putting theses chemicals into the air now, it will save the 2030 generation once they rise up and aid in ozone depletion (assuming we have any left). On top of the no televison, organic garden, and green cleaning products I am going to stop myself from buying my favorite fast food out there, if it’s even considered fast food: Starbucks. For that matter no one will be able to hear me say “Hi, can I have a grande half sweetened vanilla caramel apple spice with low fat whip please.” Although one might think the Starbucks cup could either be compost-able or recycled, from a recent article about this exact question the answer provided was shocking.
"Starbucks white paper cups, used for hot beverages, are made of paper fiber and the industry standard liner (
low-density polyethylene plastic). The paper provides the rigidity for the cup, while the plastic layer keeps the paper layer intact by protecting it from the hot beverage. This plastic layer also makes the hot beverage cups unrecyclable in most paper recycling systems. We are continually evaluating alternatives to the current plastic coating, and are currently conducting life cycle assessments for bio-based plastics." Stopping myself from my daily Starbucks trips will also lower our garbage, and hopefully my friends will too (which is more then a long shot). If you think about it, Starbucks distributes about 2.3 billion paper cups a year in Canada, and every single one of theses cups should be thrown into the trash, so for the next while it’s ‘bring your own mug’ or no Starbucks at all. All in all, I am hoping to lower my impact on the earth in many ways over the next three weeks, and if I can keep it up hopefully longer. Enjoy the blog! :)
Colin Beaven has defiantly made an effect on many peoples life styles, and recently mine as well. For the next three weeks I will be partaking in a few environmental aiding activities in hope to increase awareness and lower my carbon foot print. The first ‘project’ I will be doing is drastically lowering my television use. This means I am letting myself do a few things such as continuing to watch anything on disc's, for example movies, but if the movie isn’t playing the television is unplugged. I am also allowing myself to watch television if needed at other people houses because it is their carbon footprint and not my own. I decided to do this because I watch way too much television. I watch re-runs of re-runs; constantly have the television on unless I have something better to do. By unplugging my television when it is not in use, I could save as much as 9 kWh per year. Which is significantly lowering my carbon footprint, as well as saving me bit of cash, not much, but a small amount. Secondly, I will be advancing the use of my organic garden. The organic garden that we have at my house is pretty 'limited' at the least to say. We currently grow herbs, tomatoes, and raspberry. By expanding on this I am in hopes of growing an additional vegetables such as; cucumbers, lettuce/cabbages, beets, onions, squash and broccoli. Since the growing season, really shouldn’t start until the weekend of May 24th, I intend on growing my vegetables in boxes inside, until its significantly warm enough for my vegetables to succeed. Looking in your local supermarket, maybe, one or two name brand will be certified organic. This means that there must be a label with ‘COG 2011’ on it, not just copy right named branded ‘Organic,’ which is what many companies to do their products now. This is the tricky part, for example I do my part in buying certified organic food and products, and so while I was at Shoppers looking for make up, I saw a new brand on the shelf. The name was you guessed it, ‘Organics.’ Well, I took this mascara bottle and looked for the certified organic label on it, and much as I presumed it was no where in sight. So advancing my organic garden will stop putting pesticides into my body, lessen the amount of chemicals being put into the troposphere. Hopefully my organic garden as well will be noticed by my neighbors and keep the aware about their food decisions. Lab tests and industry disclosures indicate that 60-75% of all non-organic Supermarket foods now ‘test positive’ for the presence of genetically engineered ingredients. This means that none the less you are putting pesticides into your body (assuming a large company that modifying its seeds, are using pesticides) but you are no longer eating the same dna that an apple would have had, maybe four or five years ago. As I was telling my mom about my Environmental & Resource Management’s class’s take on Colin Beaven’s project she said she would do her part in only buying the organic line of cleaning products. This means the product was made with plant-based biodegradable cleaning ingredients, with no harsh chemical fumes or residue, and to top that off it was never tested on animals. Now the affect of not using theses harsh chemicals would be incredibly hard and possibly impossible to detect how much chemicals we are saving from putting into the environment, but if we stop putting theses chemicals into the air now, it will save the 2030 generation once they rise up and aid in ozone depletion (assuming we have any left). On top of the no televison, organic garden, and green cleaning products I am going to stop myself from buying my favorite fast food out there, if it’s even considered fast food: Starbucks. For that matter no one will be able to hear me say “Hi, can I have a grande half sweetened vanilla caramel apple spice with low fat whip please.” Although one might think the Starbucks cup could either be compost-able or recycled, from a recent article about this exact question the answer provided was shocking. "Starbucks white paper cups, used for hot beverages, are made of paper fiber and the industry standard liner (low-density polyethylene plastic). The paper provides the rigidity for the cup, while the plastic layer keeps the paper layer intact by protecting it from the hot beverage. This plastic layer also makes the hot beverage cups unrecyclable in most paper recycling systems. We are continually evaluating alternatives to the current plastic coating, and are currently conducting life cycle assessments for bio-based plastics." Stopping myself from my daily Starbucks trips will also lower our garbage, and hopefully my friends will too (which is more then a long shot). If you think about it, Starbucks distributes about 2.3 billion paper cups a year in Canada, and every single one of theses cups should be thrown into the trash, so for the next while it’s ‘bring your own mug’ or no Starbucks at all. All in all, I am hoping to lower my impact on the earth in many ways over the next three weeks, and if I can keep it up hopefully longer. Enjoy the blog! :) 
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