Merritt Philpot

I work for a non profit that's based out of Oak Ridge and provides resources to families and friends of people who are struggling with drug addiction. With the help of my boss, I calculated our organization's carbon footprint through Tradewater. To offset our carbon emissions by 100%, it would only cost $15.93 per month. I didn't really know how much money to expect it to cost, but it's a really reasonable amount! I'm glad that I did this challenge because it prompted me to think about how my organization can be more sustainable. Since Covid, most of my team has been working remotely, which has resulted in us using a lot less resources than we used to. For example, we used to print a lot of documents, but that is unnecessary now that we've adapted to an online working environment. I think something we can do is keep these habits in place once we return to working in person, and also to pay the monthly amount to offset the emissions that might not be possible to reduce. 

To learn more about sustainable fashion, I first listened to the podcast "Sustainable Fashion," by Everyday Ethical. Something interesting I learned in this podcast is that there are 52 micro seasons in today's fast fashion industry, compared to what used to be the 4 seasons of spring, summer, winter, and fall. It's easy to see this in how fast that trends go in and out of style, but learning that there's a new season introduced every week of the year really puts it in perspective. Going along with what we've learned in this class, the podcast addresses that the first step to becoming a more sustainable buyer is just reducing consumption in general. A part of the podcast that I resonated with is when the host talks about setting rules for yourself when buying clothes. A rule that I like to follow when I find a piece of clothing that I want to buy is that I have to find it secondhand. If I can't find something similar to it at a thrift store, I'll try to find it on a resale website like Poshmark or Depop. This is not only sustainable because it extends the life of the piece of the clothing, but also a lot cheaper! After listening to the podcast, I found out about this app called Good On You that tells you how ethical the company you're buying from. I think this is really cool because, if you don't want to buy something secondhand, you can make sure you're buying it from somewhere ethical and sustainable. I liked learning more about sustainable fashion because I think it helps to empower me to make the most conscious decision when buying clothing. 

Today I spent about 40 minutes learning about expiration dates. First, I read an article called "Product Food Dating" on the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service. This website was really helpful in understanding the difference between best by, use by, and sell buy dates. I was interested to learn that none of the best by, use by, or sell by dates are actually safety dates. They're really just there for the store or the consumer to reference. Next, I listened to a podcast called "Expiration Dates," by Ungeniused, published on January 13, 2020. This podcast had a lot of interesting tidbits about food freshness, like how canned food actually never expires unless it's exposed to temperatures that are too extremely hot or cold. This made me remember my mom telling me about how when she was a kid in the late 60s and 70s, there were no expiration dates on cans! Another interesting fact I learned from the podcast is that the UK actually stopped the use of sell by dates because it was encouraging food waste. Lastly, I learned about salvage grocery stores in an article called "Salvage Grocery Stores Can Be Your Guide to Big Savings," by Erin Huffstetler, on thespruceeats.com. The article talks about grocery stores that sell foods deemed unacceptable for sale in regular grocery stores. This could be because the foods have damaged or torn packaging, are in out-of-season packaging, were overstock, or were salvaged from delivery truck wrecks. Some of these foods might be past their use by, sell by, or best by dates, but are otherwise perfectly fine. I think it's awesome that, considering how much perfectly good food we waste yearly, salvage grocery stores can save some percentage of that which would otherwise be thrown away. I'm glad that I had the opportunity to learn more about the difference between these dates because it may prevent me from wasting food in the future. 

Today I cleaned out my fridge and had almost no food waste! I feel really accomplished and I'm excited to keep these habits up to reduce my food waste even after the challenge is over.

I'm almost three weeks into my challenge and I've found that keeping a food waste diary has been super helpful in reducing my waste! It's helped me realize patterns in the food waste that I produce, so I've started looking at it before I go grocery shopping every week to make sure I'm buying things I won't waste. This is such a simple thing to do that's made such a big difference for me!

Since I've started my eco challenge, I've become a lot more cognizant of using my groceries up before they go bad. I didn't realize at first just how much food I was throwing away, and the money I was wasting by doing that. I've realized that it's a lot easier than it seemed at first to cut down on food waste by simply being more aware of it.