June 9th, 2019

I'm so thankful for being given the opportunity to embark on this low waste journey. I've been wanting to for the past year or two, but never thought that I could actually start thinking about it. This honors contract with Professor Summer Gray really held me accountable for my aspirations, and I am so happy to have begun this journey. It's really been interesting trying to keep my trash in a mason jar, reducing my packaging purchases, and even changing my attitude to consider the GHG impacts of my actions.

I noticed that I stopped driving so much because I didn't want to emit GHG. I didn't buy lots of my favorite food because of the packaging. And I even started buying shrimp from the market versus frozen foods. This is an improvement but honestly, the transition to a plant-based meal will be a later adventure.

Overall, here is a photo of the items I kept in my mason jar. There is no way that this was all the trash I made over the past quarter. There were items that couldn't fit, such as food packages because they were significantly cheaper than other items, recyclables, and compostables. I still consider recyclables and compostables waste because you aren't 100% sure if they get sorted properly... even if you did your best to clean the items and place it in the correct bins. I am harsher on recyclables because only PLA 1 & 2 are accepted in SB County. It frustrates me that it is possible to recycle all plastics, but only 2 categories are accepted. This basically means recycling is useless to lots of materials that hold groceries. So what's the point of recycling if you can't do it for the majority of plastic? The plastic that is accepted could also be contaminated... so companies are only recycling a tiny portion of what they could be doing.

As I continue on this journey, I am telling others my story. I hope that this encourages others to think differently about the food system and their consumption so that they alter their attitudes and habits into something more considerate and sustainable.