Sarah Galyon

UTKSUST

POINTS TOTAL

0 TODAY
0 THIS WEEK
555 TOTAL

participant impact

UP TO

68

pounds of CO2

have been saved
UP TO

30

minutes

spent learning
UP TO

99

plastic containers

not sent to the landfill

Sarah's actions

Food

Composting

Composting, Reduced Food Waste

I will start a compost bin where I live.

COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Materials

Reduce Single-Use Disposables

Bioplastics

I will avoid buying and using 3 single-use plastics and instead replace them with durable options.

COMPLETED 0
DAILY ACTIONS

Materials

Research Cement Alternatives

Alternative Cement

I will spend at least 30 minutes researching cement alternatives that reduce the carbon footprint of concrete.

COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Transport

Stay on the Ground

Telepresence, High-Speed Rail

Instead of traveling by plane, I will find an alternative way to accomplish the goals of an upcoming trip (i.e. telepresence, vacation locally).

COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Participant Feed

Reflection, encouragement, and relationship building are all important aspects of getting a new habit to stick.
Share thoughts, encourage others, and reinforce positive new habits on the Feed.

To get started, share “your why.” Why did you join the challenge and choose the actions you did?

REFLECTION QUESTION
Materials Research Cement Alternatives

Concrete is a good example of a material that most of us encounter every day, but its carbon footprint may not be obvious. What other everyday materials might have a large carbon footprint? How can you find out more?

Sarah Galyon 3/06/2020 4:28 PM

A lot of what we use in a day probably has a much larger footprint than we think. Most of the stuff we use is highly processed, which most likely takes energy at every step of production. This is why we should try to reuse as much as we can.

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REFLECTION QUESTION
Transport Stay on the Ground

What was your process like for restructuring your trip? How can you avoid more air travel in the future?

Sarah Galyon 3/04/2020 8:49 AM

For spring break, I am going to visit my sister in North Carolina. Although it's a short drive, my parents always prefer that I fly rather because they are worried about me driving through the mountains. For this trip, I made plans to drive rather than fly even though my parents offered to pay for my flight.

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REFLECTION QUESTION
Materials Reduce Single-Use Disposables

What single-use items (e.g. straws, coffee cups, vegetable bags, plastic bags) do you regularly use? What could be substituted instead?

Sarah Galyon 2/06/2020 8:59 AM

A lot of the plastic that I use comes from what I eat because it's more convenient. I tend to buy a lot of POD market food and snacks to take to class with me. Eventually all these things add up. Instead, I've been packing snacks like muffins that I make at home or apples to eat in between classes. This has helped me to cut down on the single use plastic that I am using.

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REFLECTION QUESTION
Food Composting

Producing food that goes uneaten squanders many resources—seeds, water, energy, land, fertilizer, hours of labor, financial capital. Which of these kinds of waste most motivates you to change your behavior regarding food waste? Why?

Sarah Galyon 2/05/2020 4:52 PM

The thing that most motivated my to change my behavior by creating a compost bin was the waste that I was making, through food waste and compostable "brown" materials. Sending all of these materials to a landfill or even some to a recycling center is often energy intensive and adds to the massive amount of waste on our Earth. Composting is an easy and effective way to reduce some amount of energy usage and recycling waste into something usable.

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