sustainability – art, design and social practice

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