UPDATE: Eco Footprint

It's now the middle of the quarter. Don't really want to be thinking about that right now, but it's time for an update one how well I'm doing on reducing my ecological footprint.

I've been doing well and keeping up with a couple of my goals. Every time I take a shower, I time myself. My showers now only take between 4 and 10 minutes, compared to before they were 10 to 15 minutes. For the other part of my water conservation goal, when I wash the dishes I make sure the water isn't blasting out the faucet while I'm rinsing them. I feel like I pay more attention to this goal because it's easier for me to remember and sometimes there isn't enough hot water, so my showers are a little cold and it makes me take shorter ones.

Remembering to turn off the lights and unplug my cell phone charger has also been a success. I've been really conscious about this. Once my phone is done charging, I unplug it from the charger and then unplug my charger right away. I'm trying to do the same for my laptop charger. Most of them time, I leave it plugged in. Now when it's done charging, I remember to unplug it also. Thinking about all the unplugging I've been doing, I started to leave my TV and DVD player unplugged, since I don't use them that much. To save a little more electricity, I'm remembering to turn the fan off when I'm done taking a shower. A lot of the time I forget to turn it off when I'm done in the bathroom.

My other goal of buying products with less packaging is... going. I could be doing better. The last few times I've gone grocery shopping, I've tried to buy items can be mostly recycled. It's hard trying to find some products that are all recyclable. When I'm on campus and I buy lunch, I make sure almost everything can be recycled or composted. There are usually one or two items that go in the "landfill" bin. The other part of my goal, buying local fresh food, is not going so well. This part needs improvement. I have not gone to buy local foods from the farmer's market or from the Food Co-op.

Alright, I'm going to make a new goal and hopefully achieve it and stick with it. My new goal is to remember to bring my resuable bags with me to the grocery store. I have them and I always forget to bring them with me. There are 3 big bags full of bags in my closet. More bags do not need to be added to that.