Every Piece Of Waste Has A Story

Originally published by Amber C. Lee in Sodexo at HCC's monthly report January 2013:

"Every Piece Of Waste Has A Story"

As you prepare for your holiday break and to come back to campus in January, think about the waste you generate in your everyday activities or when selecting your college supplies. Every piece of paper, pencil, tool, food product, or otherwise that enters your personal waste stream has a story. It is our personal responsibility to reduce our personal waste stream as much as possible, lessening the impact on our blue planet and the green in our wallet.

When choosing a new product or tool, are you thinking about how much packaging is used or if it was made with recycled materials? Can you reduce your shipping cost and the amount of packaging by combining orders? Reducing and making conscious choices with sustainability in mind is the first step in reducing your personal waste stream.

Take a look at the bottles of water the next time you’re at the store: many companies are now offering up to 50% recycled plastics or reduced bottle sizes that can then be re-used and recycled after it enters your waste stream. When you make conscious purchases, every dollar you spend is a vote to which companies continue to produce or serve our market. You have a direct impact with every purchase to encourage positive for the planet products.

How are you going to use that product or item once it’s in your personal waste stream? Will you use it once and throw it away, or can you re-use that can to plant flowers in, or fix and item when it brakes instead of purchasing the latest model. When you refuse to fix or re-use an item, you are effectively choosing to significantly shorten that item’s life span. Choose to re-use as much as possible and simply fix your broken things instead of replacing them. Just because it isn’t the newest edition or release, doesn’t mean what you have isn’t usable or donatable to someone that will use the item.

Once you have thoroughly used a product past its life span, how is that product leaving your personal waste stream? Think about the things you use and how to get the most use not only for the planet, but for your own wallet too. You create the story for every piece of waste or product that enters your life.

Let’s look at buying a cup of coffee. Did you bring your own thermos? Did you purchase from our dining areas that offer certified fair-trade coffee? Did you recycle your paper cup or use it for a second cup? Do you know if the grounds and filters are being recycled for compost? Did you get a discount on campus for using your own cup?

These are great questions to ask, however it starts with a personal commitment to sustainability. A commitment to sustainability means making conscious decisions that are good for people, the planet and the economy. When you choose sustainability, everyone wins. Discover more about the waste in your life and learn how you can make an impact by contacting Amber C. Lee.

Represent: Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee for Tampa Bay Regional Metropolitan Planning Organization

Downtown yesterday, I was asked if I would represent Eastern Hillsborough County's interests on the Bicycle & Pedestrian Advisory Committee (BPAC) for the Tampa Bay Regional Metropolitan Planning Organization. Katharine and I were there to represent the college and our need for adequate bike lanes to our campuses as a way to reduce our carbon footprint.

 The committee's website is here.

Mmmm.. So Good.. An Alternative to Soy Milk

Making the switch to vegetarianism? I recently watched the free Youtube documentary entitle "Home". I highly recommend seeing this film.

Watch it here when you have the time.

What struck me the most in the film is that it takes 10x more energy to produce an animal meat product that a vegetable or fruit product- meaning more water, feed, space, etc - and creating 10x the carbon footprint. Yes, animal protein was extremely important initially in our species' brain development, and I know I'll probably want a thick, juicy steak grilled to perfection at some point down the road (my mouth is watering at the thought). Thanks to greater availability of non-meat imitations, soy products and increased grocery availability in general for most Americans, its not hard to shift your eating choices away from that of meat products.

If you are adapting to a vegetarian lifestyle (no matter what type), try this product as a non-soy milk replacement: Silk Pure Almond. I've tried the vanilla flavor so far, and it tastes DELICIOUS! Its low in calories and high in calcium, vitamins D & E, and protein. I feel like I'm having a milkshake when I'm drinking a glass... Yum!!

Check out all the great reasons to switch to Silk Pure Almond here.

Invitation to Love (poem)

I wrote this short poem after my KINS Founders weekend: an enlightening and connecting weekend with some very special people I now call my KINS. We shared an afternoon walk of silence and meditated on our individual vision of a green, vibrant Tampa Bay. Sitting at my computer desk at home, I recall that inspiring afternoon:

Invitation to Love

 

the earth seemed inviting

as the grass crunched under my feet

the sun fell warmly on our bodies

as we stood in communion

with the earth, as one organism

the metal and glass are a contrast

to our natural place of belonging

the love extends from the earth

in a way that man-made never could

Helen, Georgia    taken by: Amber C. Lee

U.S. Postal Service Takes A Green Step

Introducing "Go Green" stamps at your nearest U.S. Post Office, encouraging and informing postal customers in different ways of reducing their personal environmental impact in easy ways. Going green is reality. Great idea, Postal Service!

Check it out here on their site for purchasing and green tips.

They give three great tips on the flyer I'd picked up at the Post Office in town:

     --> Adjust the thermostat. Every degree can lower your energy bill by 3%.

     --> Use public transportation.

     --> Plant trees. They remove carbon dioxide and contaminants for the air and provide a habitat for wildlife.

They also have the CUTEST tote bags for a trip or the grocery or to the beach...

Thanks, U.S. Postal Service. Great tips, and a great example in the right direction!

In Memory...

This post will be included on all of my blogs today, in remembrance of those who have lost their lives, and those that gave them trying to save others...

We all know what happened seven years ago today.. And while I'm still not sure of who exactly attacked those innocent lives or how the reinforced towers fell due to extreme heat (steel has never melted from a fire) or why witnesses reported secondary explosions or why an airliner was able to penetrate the Pentagon's airspace after the Towers had been attacked... but I do believe I know why they choose the targets they did.. The Twin Towers were symbolic of America's wealth, trade, and capitalistic values, and the Pentagon represents our military power.

Over 2,900 Americans and 236 foreigners died in the attacks, and many are still missing and presumed dead.

This is the world we live in... Consider these facts:

Currently in Iraq, there have been over 87,000 civilian and 4,155 American military casualties.

In the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 1,290 Palestinians and 86 Israelis have been killed.

An estimated 160,000 to 400,000 have been murdered in the Darfur region of Africa, and the genocide is still occurring to date.

In 1994, the UN reports that 800,000 were killed during the Rwandan Genocide.

During the Cambodian genocide of 1975-1979, an estimated 1,700,000 lost their lives.

From 1933 to 1935, the Holocaust claimed the lives of an estimated 9,000,000 to 11,000,000.

Over 1,500,000 Armenians were killed from 1915 to 1917.

Why do we continue to harm each other? Hatred and misunderstanding. Extremism and twisted views.

We are all human-- no matter who our God is, what color our skin is, who our ancestors were, or what's mine and what's yours. It's time we started treating each other that way!

Thank you to all the peace-makers. Thank you to all those that try to help and save others. And today, we should not only remember those that died seven years ago in the 9/11 attacks, but the millions who have lost their lives from the misguided hatred of others in our past...

How Small We Really Are...

Sometimes it's hard to imagine, or even have time to think about, how small we really are in comparison to this universe..

Today, I watched a movie (for free) from Hulu.com entitled Cosmic Voyage. Narrated by Morgan Freeman and full of neat views of both the macrocosm (big stuff) and the microcosm (little stuff), it's a real eye opener to all that's around us and where are universe came from..

It was quite humbling, especially when the film zooms out to a view like that below (from the Hubble telescope), and you realize that all of those millions of galaxies have billions of stars, which most likely have planets, and most probably life.

Take a look at all of these galaxies:

Towards the end of the film, they show two spiral galaxies colliding into one... What they don't explain is that this is what will eventually happen to our galaxy and our neighboring Andromeda galaxy (which is quite a bit bigger than ours) in about 3 billion years...

This video is from Youtube.com entitled How the Milky Way Will End:



If two galaxies collide, and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound??

Intriguing and educational.. I love films like these!