sustainability – art, design and social practice

http://greenupgrader.com/4262/one-million-beer-bottles-later-and-its-a-buddhist-temple/#

check out images on this site: buddhist temple made from recycled bottles

During this semester I have done many things to reduce my impact.  My major project is to see how little waste I can produce by finding alternative purposes for waste and purchasing less.  I currently have a huge pile of bottle, cans, paper and various other materials collected from the street, friends and my own consumption.  It is amazing the amount of trash accumulates over such a short period of time and makes me consider each new item I purchase.  The unusable materials I am recycling which is available in my apartment complex.
I always turn my lights off and I am slow replacing the energy efficient bulbs (money factor).  I have stopped unnecessary habits such as taking long showers (5 minutes every other day), using the clothes dryer (line dry), using the dishwasher, and unplugging appliances when they are not being used.  I have been more aware of the food I purchase and am weening myself off of pre packaged and processed foods.  This is becoming more and more easy because I am tired of having an ever growing pile of useless packaging.
In terms of transportation I have been fairly good.  I do not own a car, so in the city I am either walking or riding my bike.  Unfortanatly, I am flying this thanksgiving to Atlanta, but I am planning on that being my last flight for a long time.  I am looking into a cross country train trip for this summer.  I feel that not only is it saving energy, you are so much more connected to the act of traveling and seeing the world.  Its important for me to break away from the immediate rewards that our society thrives and experience life in a slower, more connect way.
In addition to all my personal behaviors, I have starting discussing the matter with friends and family.  My Mom works for the E.P.A and has a huge amount of insight into the subject.  She is currently in Cambodia working to stop the building of dams on the Mekong River and present alternative sources of energy.  With her expertise, I have been able to understand how to practically apply sustainability into ones life style.  I am making an effort to encourage others around me to begin doing the same thing.  Most of the time it simply takes awareness in order to change things.  If someone does not know they are doing something wrong they will continue to do it.

to add photo’s: go to “write” click the “add media” button on the “post” page, a box will come up with “from computer” or “from URL” use the “from computer”  click the “choose file from computer” box

For a little over a week I wrote down everything I consumed. A long list of materials on paper.

Since then I have reduced my carbon footprint by:

Light bulb usage; actively turning off lights when I am not in need of them at both my house and studio – which has extended to entire station building at night. I also changed the one light bulb in my house that isn’t an 8ft florescent.

Water usage; I rarely flush the toilet, and rarely take showers (upsides to a lonely single life). I have become more concerned with wasting water where as I used to let the water run often. I refill bottles and don’t buy plastic cups which was an occasional solution to doing dishes.

Smoking habbits; I only smoke weed on sundays and have a one cigarette a day rule. (These solutions came about for selfish reasons, I haven’t looked much into the carbon factor of burning this stuff)

Food; I no longer buy meat from the super market but when fed by friends or eating at a restaurant I haven’t made the same commitment. I try to get to the farmers market and buy locally. Earlier it was never part of my criteria when making such choices.

Recycling; I have a large pile of material to be recycled in one corner of my apt. I enjoy throwing banana peels out of my window and into a wooded area along the Amtrak train yard. I have broken occasional littering habits of dropping trash and cigarettes in places where there is already trash and places that look too clean. Trash in my pockets go at the first easy trash can. Bottles from my backpack usually end up at my apartment.

Machines; I don’t use many of my electric gizmos often so I have been unplugging things like my microwave, toasteroven, computer+cellphone+drill chargers, radio until they’re needed. The electronics I used most get plugged into a power strip that I can plug in all at once. My electric bill has not decreased.

Transportation; My bike was stolen, walking is slow, and slow is great. I never fly but I obsessed with the idea. I read a few articles about how brown the plane industry is and it amazed me. If and when I hit the road again I hope it will be on a sailboat. I have often borrowed my rents car to move up after the summer/winter and hold onto it for extended periods because they live in nyc and rarely use it. This semester I didn’t partly because I noticed an importance in self propelled travel for some kind of spiritual balance.

the carbon footprint project

My most effective action has probably been speaking with my parents about their future electronic purchases. It was surely an easier task than Dan had/has. My rents agreed to buy the most efficient kitchen equipment, light bulbs and there next car will be a hybrid. My parents are pretty amazing. My dad loves to research big ticket items (which are often electric) in search of both the best performance and the best price. He now agrees to add energy efficiency to the checklist. When I got my first job that took taxes directly out of my paychecks, I frustratingly sat and listened to why my parents believed paying taxes was a small price to pay for what the government does for it’s country(/people?). Whether I agree or not is still uncertain but I used the story to help sway them into possibly paying more then they might have too. The hardest part was convincing my mother that garage sale microwaves were not acceptable no matter how good the deals are. I believe the act of going to garage sales means more to my mother than the purchases but getting good deals is the satisfactory purpose. I encouraged her to buy electronics if they were pretty good deals and told her I would put them on a pedestal as artifacts to encourage more sustainable everyday life tools. We are probably going to need more museums in the future.

Oh yea and since I will not be returning home for thanksgiving I was thinking of trying skype with my folks while I eat my chinese takeout. If it works maybe I will make plans to avoid all future meetings that require gas powered travel. What do you think? haha

so i guess some progress had been made on my carbon footprint impact but i feel like for the past three weeks that has dropped a little bit in certain ways.  this is because i just moved and so i am having to readjust to certain things/i don’t have certain amenities that i used to.  a lot of these things i hope that have back to normal by thanksgiving break when i don’t have school getting in the way of any free-time.

i didn’t turn on any heat until it got below 50 degrees in my room.  but i have just recently moved into a place that is much more energy efficient –though not nearly what you could actually consider “green”– as it is not made entirely of floor to ceiling doorwalls.  i have the heat usually set at sixty degrees so that if it gets really cold it will turn on but most of the time it is off. 

some things that i am planning on doing, mostly during thanksgiving break, are putting up curtains to limit the air leaks in my two windows and also starting my composting bin now that i don’t have roommates and can do things as  i want.  i’ve had to bin for awhile and so i just need to drill holes into it and do a couple of other necessary things…like take out the stuff that i put in there when i used it as a moving box.

 i try to only have one light on at a time at night and so during the day my main source of electricity is to charge my phone and power the clock on my stove.  i also no longer have a microwave and am trying to get by for as long as possible without one.  i thought it would become a problem when wanting to heat up left-overs, which in that case i feel like it would be better to use the microwave than reheat on the stove, but that has only really occurred once.

 i’ve also been trying to eat more raw foods which was working out a bit better during the summer but now i am starting to crave warm foods because of the cold.  i have already abstained from any animal or animal by-products and have been an avid recycler for quite some time.  i buy around 95% organic foods and try to shop at the farmers market whenever possible, though i could go more.  i am making nut milks so as not to have to try away massive amounts of tetra-paks and have been buying as much as i can in bulk.

i haven’t bought any new clothing in a long time except for a sweater from a thrift stores and plan on only buying second-hand whenever i need anything.

i had been washing most of my clothing by hand and line-drying them though in my recent move i have to admit that i did use the washer and dryer twice because my bathtub didn’t seem clean enough and i didn’t have a line set up.  basically laziness /lack of time if i really think about it.

i’ve always been a very strict about turning off lights when i’m not using them due to my dad beating it into my head as a child, but recently i have sort of taken on that role and have tried to instill it into my friends’ heads to do the same while at my house and also at their own.

i had been using cfl bulbs for pretty much all of my lighting sources but when i moved i had to leave them behind and the lights in my new place are predominately incandescent and there is a track lighting strip which uses halogen bulbs.  i’m planning to buy new energy efficient bulbs as soon as possible now that i have a little bit more money.

i have a problem with collecting other peoples garbage and also not being able to throw things away and so when i moved recently to a smaller place, trying to minimize the amount of my stuff that would make it to the landfill was a top priority.  i managed to give away a good amount of stuff on craigslist to people who needed it and also hosted a free art supply shop in my bedroom where my roommates and whomever else happened to be around could “shop” and take whatever they needed.  i also did a similar thing with toiletries so that they wouldn’t have to just be thrown in the recycling.  i think i managed to only have one major trash bag, but i did create a rather large pile for recycling which isn’t too much better.

the one thing i am pretty upset about is the fact that i am flying home to michigan over winter break.  i had talked to my parents in september about taking the train but didn’t buy tickets because i wasn’t sure exactly when i’d be going home.  in the meantime, train prices have gone up significantly and airfare the opposite and so it was impossible to convince them to do otherwise.  airfare was a major part of my carbon footprint and a part i had hoped to eliminate and so this was pretty bad news.