Mayo Costanza

This week has been a week of getting back into my routine after a few weeks of being really busy with events, travel, and seeing family. In an attempt of focusing on the topic of health as a theme, I was intentional about establishing my routine again of getting in the gym to do strength training for the ultimate frisbee club season. Our team practices have also started up this week and I've chosen to bike the 15 mile round trip to get more exercise in as a built in warmup and workout. I've noticed that having this routine has created a lot of stability in my week and the exercise has really helped my mindset and mental health. I'm feeling really grateful right now for having a healthy body and the ability to exercise and do fun, active things.

This week I got to spend time with family that was visiting me in Portland, as well as family I got to go visit for Memorial Day Weekend. To spend time with my family and focus on this week's theme of nature, I chose to go on a walk once a day with someone from my family, whether it was just down the street or a park or in nature, and I would pick up trash along the walk so that I could help keep natural spaces clean. This activity made me think a lot about the packaging we use for products, how much packaging there is, and how easy it is to let it pollute the environment. Helping clean up after ourselves and others only seems like a bandage on a much bigger wound after seeing how much plastic and single-use packaging that we produce. Because of this, I have also been trying to base my purchases on how much waste a product will produce. I will try to stay away from individually packaged items and products that come with lots of packaging. It's also very easy to pick up trash and throw it away in the nearest trash can.

This week I left for a trip up to Bellingham on Thursday to watch my sister play in the College Ultimate Frisbee Nationals tournament. My partner and I decided to take the train from Portland to Bellingham instead of driving, and we have been carpooling with other friends for the whole weekend. Driving a car might have been easier because of convenience, but since we had the option to take the train (and because of this week's theme) we decided against it and pushed ourselves to make it work without a car. As much as I wish the train service in this country was faster and more comprehensive, I am still really appreciate that we have the Amtrak and that it is relatively accessible/affordable. Traveling by train takes a bit more planning but it is absolutely manageable and has its perks too.

The topic of community this week was perfect because it coincided with a bike polo tournament that I went to this weekend. Bike polo is a small, niche sport, but the community is what makes it so amazing. Fostering a good community is what bike polo is all about (along with playing the sport) and this weekend really showed that. Club members in the host city always offer to house out of towners, food is made and served to everyone at the tournament, and there are loads of community hang-outs to be had in between tournament play. Over the weekend I did my best to help out with whatever I could; I got to the courts early to help set up the event, clean the courts, and help with scheduling, I helped ref a lot of the games and made sure teams knew when they were playing next, and I assisted with providing food for everyone during the breakfasts and lunches. All of this work could not be done by just one person, or a few people alone, and it really does take a community to make these events happen, but that is what makes them so enjoyable.

During our Eco Challenge week on the topic of water I chose to focus on 2 main changes in my habits, taking shorter showers and using my reusable water bottle more often. In the past I have definitely found myself taking long showers, especially in the colder months where I use a lot of hot water for my showers. This week I have tried to be very intentional with taking showers under 5 minutes in an attempt to conserve water. I've found that this has also helped me achieve other things, like getting to bed earlier when I shower at night, staying focused when I have a busy day, saving money on utilities, and overall being better about managing my time. Each time I shower I am reminded of how privileged I am to be able to take long showers, and even have clean water that is so easily accessible. The other part of my Eco Challenge focus this week was using my water bottle more often, and in better ways. I've found that buying water bottles that I really like and that I put stickers on helps me to stay attached to them and use them more. This week I have also tried to bring my water bottle with me to places I usually wouldn't. This has helped me avoid using single use cups/bottles at places that don't offer alternatives.

For this week's topic about food, I decided to try to eat as many meat-free meals as I could throughout the week. As someone that is very active, I was a bit nervous trying this and being able to still give my body enough protein and calories to keep up with the amount of exercise that I do, but I found that it was quite a bit easier to do than I thought. I ended up having some amazing meals throughout the week as well. After a 4 hour long tryout for an ultimate frisbee club team, we went to eat at a food cart pod in north Portland and I had an amazing falafel sandwich from a food cart. Falafel (and tofu) have definitely become some of my favorite alternatives to meat. This week I also made salads for multiple meals, consisting of cranberries, goat cheese, strawberries, walnuts, rice, and balsamic dressing. Some of these ingredients I had ended up purchasing from the PSU Saturday Farmers Market in effort to buy locally. I didn't end up making every meal this week meat free, but I definitely did my best and learned that it is more of a viable option than I thought, and I will continue to try to consume less meat in the future.

This week I took a trip with our club volleyball team here at PSU to Arizona where our team competed in the club nationals tournament. With energy being the theme for this week, I thought that a aspect to focus on would be laundry. When I go on trips I am definitely an over-packer. I want to be prepared for everything and I often end up bringing much to many clothes that I end up washing when I get back. For this trip I tried to be very diligent with how many sets of clothes I brought. I reused clothes on the trip and was very intentional with how I could pack/use the least amount of clothes as possible. I only ended up bringing one bag with me (which was also really convenient for traveling) and only ended up adding a small pile of dirty clothes to my laundry when I got home. Laundry uses huge amounts of energy and I know that that is one thing that I can try to limit on a daily basis. I always wash my clothes on the "cold" setting and use the "low heat" option for drying. I even try to take out my clothes before the dryer is done if I have put in a smaller load.

For this week's eco challenge about waste I chose to be more diligent about using reusable bags when grocery shopping. I went to get groceries 3 times this week (at either Trader Joe's or Safeway) and also purchased a few more cloth tote bags from Trader Joe's so that I had enough to carry everything whenever I need groceries. Previously I had usually forgotten to bring reusable bags with me and therefore needed to use disposable bags in order to transport everything home. This week I chose to be very intentional with limiting the waste I was causing by forgetting to bring my own bags. I have noticed that this simple topic of using bags when purchasing goods is extremely prevalent in consumerism. Almost all stores that you walk into will have plastic bags and will automatically bag your purchases, even if those bags only serve the purpose of transporting those goods from the store to the parking lot. An article from The Center for Biological Diversity shares facts about plastic bag use, including the astounding fact that 5 trillion plastic bags are used every year! Imagine if everyone had their own reusable bags and used them every time they went to the store, not just for groceries but for everything! This topic got me thinking about waste in other ways too. Waste, in this context, is primarily defined as "unusable remains", but what truly makes something unusable? So many people, including myself, will throw items in the trash that we think no longer serve a purpose, but is that objectively true? If we all start to think about the definition of waste more, can we hold ourselves more accountable to evaluate the uses of items we are likely to throw away? I believe that living more sustainably and contributing to waste less is not just about buying reusable grocery bags, but it is a shift in mindset, thinking about how we define waste and how we can base our actions on whether something will be wasteful or the reusability of something.