leen monzer

For my final post, I'd like to reflect on my EcoChallenge experience and give you my thoughts about it!
Personally, I think this project is well made and motivates you to make some changes in your everyday routine, especially in a "sustainability" course! I found it so rewarding whenever I completed an action on my feed! The fact that the whole class participated in this project is great because we got the chance to learn new ways of being sustainable and it challenged us! If you ask me, it inspired me to make some life changes such as eliminating the use of plastic bags in my house and composting. To be honest, I wasn't checking my profile every day which is why I believe should've gotten a notification on my phone to remind me but despite that, I was actually being careful to make smart and green actions during my day. I did many things that I have never done before that I'm proud of, such as donating my clothes to a donation center, changing my lightbulbs, going on daily walks which really helped with my mental health. I also learned something important and I'm so glad I did which is the truth behind the expiration dates on food. (see my post below for info) I consider that this was a fun activity to do and meanwhile it spread awareness about pollution begetting serious impacts on our world. If I, as one person, believe I made changes, imagine if the whole college of Vanier participated in this! EcoChallenge truly motivates you to make changes in your life! November 25th, exactly one month before Christmas, I decided to go vegan before the holidays! It's already been almost a week and not only is it cleansing my body, but I'm beginning to understand the great impacts of eliminating products of animal origins.
Finally,  I hope I'll keep doing my part and I'm happy I was part of this project!

Today, November 16, marks a month that I've been going on daily walks every day for about 10 to 15 min. It feels so good to take fresh air and admire not only my neighbor but nature and parks around my area.
Since the cold is starting and the finals are coming up, I hope to at least get the chance to go about 3 times a week if possible because walking really does take things out of your mind and gives you the chance to relax mentally! 

this weekend, my family and I decided to change the bathrooms incandescent lightbulbs to LED bulbs. In total, we changed for about 10 bulbs. LED bulbs consume less power and reduce greenhouse emissions from power plants and saves us $14 per fixture per year.

On the occasion of thanksgiving, I asked my family to rearrange their closet and give me all their useless clothes that don't fit anymore or they want to get rid of.
We finally came up with 4 big garbage bags full of unwanted clothes.
We usually just throw them out in the garbage, but this year, since I have learned so much more about being sustainable, I wanted to help my community and send them to the "Renaissance Donation Center" where others can benefit from it.

Today, I learned the difference between the three terms of date labeling that confuses me when I go grocery shopping and I thought I would share it with you.

"Best-by"  is a suggestion to the consumer on which date the product should be consumed to assure for ideal quality.

"Use-by"  is aimed at consumers as a directive of the date by which the product should be eaten; mostly because of quality, not because the item will necessarily make you sick if eaten after the use-by date. However after the use-by date, product quality is likely to go down much faster, and safety should be considered.

"Sell-by" is aimed at sellers, and it informs them of the date by which the product should be sold or removed from the shelf. For sell-by dates that go past at home, you can continue to eat it for a short amount of time depending on what it is.
1-2 days for ground meat, beef:3-5 days, and eggs 3-5 weeks past the date which really surprised me, since I used to throw out everything almost or past the day instead of eating it.

My main goal these last two weeks since we're back to quarantining routine was to reduce my consumption of energy at home.
First off, I tried reducing the amount of water that I consume by taking shorter showers(half the time that I used to take), which was quite hard since I enjoy hot and long showers. Also, I turned off all unnecessary lights around the house that I wasn't using and instead opened my curtains to let the natural light from outside come in. The weather was pretty hot for October's month this week, so I was careful to be strategic when opening my windows so hot air wouldn't come inside and force me to put on my air conditioner. Also, I noticed that I have a lot of electrical machines that are plugged in my kitchen and my basement that I don't use often, like my toaster or my treadmill. So, I decided to unplug them and replug them only when I needed them. And finally, since the weather was great, I tried hand drying my laundry outside when I could instead of using the dryer.

Reducing my energy consumption is certainly now part of my lifestyle.

And I'm interested in finding new ways to reduce my energy for the future!

 After seeing my mom cutting watermelon and throwing the rind out in the garbage, I decided it's time to be careful about what we throw away and start composting. I introduced her to the idea and we finally decided to get composting bags and start right away! After a week only, we noticed that we consume a lot of food but even worst, we waste even more. Averagely, we threw out a small-sized bag full of food A DAY!!!
Composting had made us realize how much we waste as a family of 5.
My next challenge is for sure to try to reduce my consumption of food to waste less.
I'm glad I decided to start composting because it made me so much more aware of how I waste my food