I will take a walk for 10 minutes each day and take note of the infrastructure that makes walking more or less enjoyable, accessible, and possible.
COMPLETED 2
DAILY ACTIONS
Food, Agriculture, and Land Use
Zero-waste Cooking
Reduced Food Waste
I will cook 1 meal(s) with zero-waste each day
COMPLETED 1
DAILY ACTION
Electricity
Choose LED Bulbs
LED Lighting
I will replace 1 incandescent lightbulb(s) with Energy Star-certified LED bulbs, saving up to $14 per fixture per year.
UNCOMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION
Food, Agriculture, and Land Use
Smaller Portions
Reduced Food Waste
I will use smaller plates and/or serve smaller portions when dishing out food.
COMPLETED 0
DAILY ACTIONS
Food, Agriculture, and Land Use
Keep Track of Wasted Food
Reduced Food Waste
I will keep a daily log of food I throw away during Drawdown Ecochallenge, either because it went bad before I ate it, I put too much on my plate, or it was scraps from food preparation.
COMPLETED 0
DAILY ACTIONS
Food, Agriculture, and Land Use
Composting
Composting, Reduced Food Waste
I will start a compost bin where I live.
UNCOMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION
Transportation
Use Public Transit
Public Transit
I will use public transit 1 mile(s) per day and avoid sending up to (___) lbs of CO2 into Earth's atmosphere.
COMPLETED 1
DAILY ACTION
Transportation
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).
UNCOMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION
Action Track: Healing & Renewal
Eat Mindfully
I will eat all of my meals without distractions, e.g., phone, computer, TV, or newspaper.
COMPLETED 1
DAILY ACTION
Action Track: Healing & Renewal
More Fruits And Veggies
I will eat a heart healthy diet by adding 1 cups of fruits and vegetables each day to achieve at least 4 cups per day.
COMPLETED 0
DAILY ACTIONS
Food, Agriculture, and Land Use
Support Local Food Systems
Plant-Rich Diets
I will source 10 percent of my food from local producers each day. This could include signing up for a local CSA, buying from a farmer's market, visiting a food co-op, foraging with a local group, or growing my own ingredients.
COMPLETED 1
DAILY ACTION
Transportation
Conduct Virtual Meetings
Telepresence
I will encourage my office to hold meetings virtually whenever possible instead of requiring travel.
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?
At home, my family has been keeping a separate bag for recyclable items, such as plastic containers, bottles, and glass. The bag has been getting very full, so we decided to take all the items to a local recycling center nearby called Sunset Recycling. Here are all the items we brought:
We essentially separated the items by material type (cans, glass, plastic, etc.) and then the worker weighed the items. Each material type has a different CRV price per pound, and they basically pay us based on the weight/material of the items. Overall, it's a win-win. We not only were refunded $1.20, but we also helped contribute to preventing these materials from going to landfill and contributing to climate change. We are continuing to recycle to reduce the waste going to landfill. I think it's a good incentive to refund people for recycling, so that they know that they are doing something good for the environment.
How has your access to various kinds of transportation throughout your life influenced your current attitudes about transportation and your transportation behavior?
I have been taking the Bruin Bus to campus since fall quarter of last year. Since I live decently far from campus, it is a perfect way for me to take free public transportation without having to pay for parking while reducing my carbon footprint of not having to drive to and from campus. In middle and high school, I also grew up taking the school bus every day, so taking the bus for me is very routine. However, we lived in a small suburb in Colorado at the time with hardly any public transportation, and we lived far from everything (grocery stores, restaurants, etc.). Therefore, my family took the car everywhere we went, with the exception of me taking the school bus. This has influenced by current attitudes about transportation because it seems to me that I only take public transportation when it is convenient and/or free. I used the Metro a few times when they started doing free rides because of the pandemic. I take the Bruin Bus because it's free. However, thinking about it now, it is much cheaper than spending $5/gallon on gas and who knows how much for parking. I will continue taking the Bruin Bus and using public transportation.
Hi Megan, thanks for starting this post, I'd love to share some of my experience with public transportation as well.
I definitely think public transportation is a great way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but it might not be feasible everywhere. There are so many bus routes and metro stations in Beijing, China. You can literally get to most places in the city without walking more than 20 minutes from the bus stop or subway station that you get off. Parking spaces can be very expensive and hard to find, especially in the central area. There are also traffic jams during peak times. Therefore, taking public transportation is an ideal alternative without worrying about your car or the traffic. However, in LA, there aren't so many public transportation routes to conveniently reach the destinations, so private cars remain the primary transportation method for most people. I believe the transition into more public transportation is both an individual and collective effort, promoted by the government's investment in building convenient infrastructures.
That is not to say that we can't do anything. As you and Iman have shared, taking bruin buses to school instead of driving or Uber/Lyft is a good start. If I drive, I'll need to pay for the quarterly parking permit. Every time I go to school, I need to park at the designated parking structure, and sometimes spend 5-10 minutes just to find a spot in the structure. Taking busses doesn't necessarily cost me more time.
I think I am going to start trying the Bruin Bus! I spent my summer in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan for a research program, and I was honestly shocked at how great the public transportation options were. The campus itself had their own bus systems that had convenient stops all over their enormous campus. There were also public buses that would come to campus and could take students and the public outside of the campus bubble. Additionally, students were able to ride the public buses for free if they had their student ID card, which I think was an extra incentive to use them.
I feel like in LA and California in general, there is a bit of stigma around using public transportation. It was so lovely being in a place where it was normalized, and it saved me so much money and allowed me to get in a tiny bit of exercise by walking 5-10 minutes to the closest bus stops.
I plan to start using the Bruin Bus more to get to campus quicker and get around the Westwood area, and I hope that other students consider this option as well!
Saturday evening, my apartment mate and I walked to the men's volleyball game against UCI from our apartment which is south of Wilshire Blvd. By car, it only takes 5 minutes. By walking, it takes 30 minutes one way. The sun was still out and the weather was perfect--not too cold, not too hot. We left our apartment a bit earlier, so that we had enough time to walk to the game. I didn't mind the walk because I got to catch up with my apartment mate who just moved back today. We haven't seen each other in person since December, so it was nice to be able to get our exercise while catching up and laughing and breathing hard on the way there haha.
After the game was over (we won!), we had to walk back another 30 minutes to our apartment through Westwood. We stopped by In-N-Out for dinner and a new boba shop next door for dessert. If we were driving, it would've taken much longer to find street parking on a busy Saturday night. Luckily, with the convenience of walking, we didn't have to deal with parking. Overall, it was a fun night walking to the game. I hope to continue doing this for other games at Pauley in order to reduce my carbon footprint!
I am the Internal Vice President (IVP) for Alpha Lambda Delta & Phi Eta Sigma National Honor Societies (ALDPES) at UCLA. As the IVP, I'm in charge of planning and executing general member meetings. I hosted the winter quarter welcome meeting via Zoom. To ensure that our virtual meeting honors our organization's culture, I had the board members put the ALDPES logo as their virtual background. Also, I started off with an icebreaker involving this-or-that questions for members to get to know some of the other members.
I feel grateful that we have the technology to meet virtually, especially since I live south of Wilshire, which is a far walk to campus. Since we hold our meetings at night, I am glad that I don't have to walk by myself through Westwood and can do the meeting from the comfort of my own apartment.
In North America, up to 65% of food waste happens at the consumer level. Chef Steven Satterfield advocates for utilizing every part of a vegetable. How can you incorporate using an entire vegetable, including the skins, tops, and stalks during your next meal prep?
Today, I cooked a Chinese leafy green vegetable called "you cai." I cooked the entirety of the vegetable, including the leaves and stems, and didn't have to cut off the bottom part of the stem because it was just so fresh. As you can see in the picture below, all I did was wash the veggie, without even having to cut anything. I have more Chinese vegetables in my refrigerator, like "gai lan" and "bok choy," and plan to cook all of it including the thick stem. Actually, the stem is my favorite part of the vegetable.
In the future, I hope to try to continue using all parts of the vegetable so that I don't waste any of it. I will try to cook my vegetables before they go bad, so I don't have to cut any bad parts off. Overall, it felt really refreshing to not throw any parts of the veggie away.
Last Friday, my dad, mom, and I walked to a Vietnamese restaurant called Banh Mi Che Cali to order takeout for lunch. It was nice to be able to get some fresh air and Vitamin D after being in the house all morning. This is actually the first time that I was able to walk with my parents to get takeout. Usually, my dad would just drive to the restaurant by himself, pick up the food, and bring it back for all of us to eat. However, this time, I was able to convince my parents to take a break from work and walk over to the restaurant. It takes a couple minutes by car to get to the restaurant, but it took slightly longer to walk. On our way, we talked about the nice 70-degree weather in the winter season, money, and graduate school.
We ordered 3 different items, which cost about $16 to feed a family of four. (I highly recommend this place for cost-effective meals.) However, one thing I noticed was their use of the plastic bag and saran wrap to wrap the food items. We didn’t bring a reusable bag and could’ve probably said that we didn’t need a bag, but next time, I will remember to do that. We did save on the carbon emissions by walking to the restaurant, but the plastic bag could’ve been skipped.
I have noticed that there are many cars that pass by since the path we take to the restaurant is on a major road. However, our neighborhood is dominated by Chinese people, and there are a lot of people who walk or bike to get to where they need. To make the walk more enjoyable, the sidewalks need to be fixed because the tiles are often crooked or cracked which makes it difficult to walk without having to look down at the floor all the time.
Today, I ate my breakfast mindfully without any distractions. (Before I ate, I did take a picture for proof, but then I set my phone aside.) While I was eating, I could hear the crunch of the Honey Nut Cheerios with each chew, I could feel the cold milk running down my esophagus and into my stomach, and I could hear the birds chirping outside. I could feel my shivers since I just woke up from my warm bed and ate cold cereal immediately after getting up. I was tempted to reach for my phone only once, but before I could touch my phone, I remembered that I was supposed to eat without distractions.
Eating mindfully isn’t that hard for me. During dinnertime, my family of 4 all sits around a circular table without our phones. We just enjoy each other’s company and talk about anything ranging from how our day went to what we should do over the weekend to pure silence and just enjoying our food. I grew up not having my phone near me at all at the dining table, so I am usually not tempted to get off my seat and go on it in the middle of a meal unless it is something urgent like a phone call. However, when I eat breakfast in the morning, I usually eat alone, so I scroll through social media and check my emails while I’m at it. I hope to implement these changes during my breakfast meal and just enjoy the food in front of me while listening to the sounds coming outside my window.
In fact, I took PSCYTRY 175 over the summer of 2020, so I am already familiar with how mindfulness and meditation work. I do think that it has a lot of benefits, but many times, I feel too busy with my present life that I don’t get a chance to meditate. I guess my New Year’s resolution for this 2022 should be to practice mindfulness more :)
Today, I finished eating some seaweed in a plastic container. I couldn’t find a single recycle symbol on it, and I didn’t want to throw it away and have it become landfill. What better thing to do than to reuse it as a container to carry some small items! In fact, that’s exactly what I did.
Since my apartment’s laundry machines are coin-operated, I have been saving up quarters, so I can use the washer and dryer every week or so. Instead of having the quarters bulk up my wallet, I decided to use that seaweed container as a “piggy bank” for my coins. By the look of it, it seems pretty cheesy for a piggy bank to be a seaweed container, but having it be thrown out as waste and contributing to carbon emissions is even worse. I mean, the container itself is lightweight but sturdy enough to handle the coins as they pile up.
In the future, I will try to find seaweed that is not packaged in plastic containers like this one to reduce my waste output. I will also keep this in mind for other goods that I buy, even if it means staying longer in grocery stores to examine their packaging. Eventually, when I don’t need to keep stocking up on coins, I will put other small items in the seaweed container since the container itself cannot be recyclable. Some items I am potentially thinking of are pens and pencils, playing cards, or small gadgets.
The seaweed container is here to stay and be of great use.
Hi Megan! I also tried to start a mini piggy bank, but with a plastic container that I kept from ordering take out one day. I chose this smaller one, which I keep on my desk so it doesn't take up much room, but it also serves as a reminder for me to use it as much as I can. So far, I've found it very useful as I also use quarters for laundry, and don't have to fish them out of my cramped wallet.
I also could not find a recycle symbol on mine and did not want to have it end up as landfill. I think this is something that could be more clearly labelled in the future, since disposables and waste are often improperly assorted. Even recycling plastics, though is great, has some considerations as well. Apparently, recycling methods have the potential to release organic compounds and fumes which can be harmful to the environment. Additionally, there's the consideration of down-cycling, which is when the plastic is broken down and turned into a less useful product than it originally was. This is not to discourage recycling though. Reading up on these considerations online definitely made me more conscious about the plastics and recyclables I have around my place and if I can find any practical use for them.
I also had a habit of buying plastic bags/containers with my groceries and food. Thus, in the future, I plan to limit my purchase of plastic when possible and use reusable bags when grocery shopping.
