Edgar Padilla Fierros

With this week being about consumerism I already knew I had a challenge in my hands. I have been wanting a new monitor. But after the readings and the videos from class I had a lot more to consider. So when I found myself at Costco I knew I was in for a tough battle. There was (probably still is) a monitor on a pretty good sale. So i slowed down, and considered everything regarding this purchase. First, how much better is it from what I currently have. It is a significantly better monitor than mine, mine is about 6 years old now, but was already an older model when I got it on sale. Already a point in favor of buying a new one. Second, how much do I really need it? For the most part, I don't use my desktop much throughout the school year, as a math major most of my homework is handwritten on paper, or digitally on a tablet. For other classes, I have a laptop that allows me to meet up in person with classmates and socialize. So a point against this purchase. But what it ultimately came down to was the fact that while it would be nice, it would be too nice a monitor for my current computer. And knowing myself I would notice that my computer couldn't utilize the monitor to its full potential and want to upgrade that next. Another purchase that I don't really need at the moment. While it was challenging to pass up this amazing deal, I knew it was a want, not a need. Also realized I was self imposing obsolescence on tech that works just fine and has more than a few years in it left.

This week I made the trek out to the Learning Gardens Lab through trimet, about 75 minute ride, both train and bus. Thursday's are usually grocery day, so I planned out with my roommate to meet up at the Costco out in Clackamas after my time at the LGL. They drove and I took public transit. This saved plenty of time from me having to drive back home, THEN head out to grocery shop. But also reduce my own emissions. This week was the big grocery trip, bulk items and other household things, so a vehicle and Costco were needed. Otherwise a short trip on the max would have sufficed. I do wish however there were easier ways to transport groceries back home after a big haul. Our little wagon thing can only carry so much.

This week I socialized and hung out with people form my building, otherwise known as "neighbors". A few months ago we had a new tenant move in, and once they were settled in they learned of our community's Facebook group. We don't have a proper bulletin board, so we use that to post notices of left big packages in the mail area so they aren't stolen or lost, and other general announcements. Well around December this new tenant posted that they wanted to start up a regular weekly MTG sessions for the building, welcoming new players, experienced players or anyone interested in the game. Myself, I haven't played in over a decade. I had not made an actual attempt at attending, as I kept using that cheap energy entertainment the book spoke of. I would lose track of time scrolling on my phone, or playing some gacha game, or just brainrot tv. But after last weeks readings, and the desire to engage with my local community more, I attended for the first time. It was a little shaky at first, these are people I don't know on any level aside from them living in my building. But we had a good time, exchanged gaming profiles, and even went a little longer than the usual time it runs for.

Safe to say I will be putting in a greater effort into connecting with them and be on the look out for more groups that align with my interest. Aside from that, I am still in touch with a few student I met during the Earth Day even at LGL from the Mindful Gardening class.

My water bill is added as a utility through my rent, so I personally didn't know how much water I was using in my household, so for this week's topic of water I looked into to it. I reached out to the property managers and inquired about how to check the water meter for my apartment and if there was a way to see the exact charge for water through a bill of some sort. They were very happy to assist. Turns out we don't have individual meters outside the building, but are instead inside the unit, with a handy LCD screen to read water usage as it happens. The sent me a copy of our unit's water usage from last month, and we used a bit less than we did this time last year. but now that I can read our day to day usage i can more directly see the impact I personally have. Since I struggle with long showers I used the meter to start shortening my showers. So far I have shortened it about 5 minutes on the days I work, and about 15 minutes on my days off. While I wish I could reduce the work day showers more, a long hot shower after a 12 hour shift is still a necessity. But now I can better track usage, and work to find even more ways to reduce water waste.

This week was spent learning a lot about the items and appliances that use the most water, I initially wanted to learn how to reduce water waste with my laundry, as I always felt it would be one of the most wasteful, but I was mistaken. Our current washing machine weighs the amount of clothing and adjust the amount of water per load. I had assumed it used the same amount of water every time with every load, knowing that now, I have begin rethinking how to do my laundry, by optimizing the way I sort laundry and measure how my loads I can keep water waste to a minimum while optimizing load size/weight.

Overall I'm happy to have been able to get help from the property managers and for their transparency regarding billing to best adjust my water usage. And lowering my water waste in my showers

This week I did not do good, like at all. I did not meal prep for work like I usually do, relying on prepackaged food from Costco. I did not shop local, and did not give a second thought to where my food came from this week. However looking back to that, I can use that as a stepping stone to where my shortcomings are. My time management got out of hand so I had to cut corners in my food. Which showed me an amount of prepackaged food I purchase out of convenience, and it was not a number I am proud of. But now having a baseline I can set achievable goals for substituting unsustainable foods, with appropriate items. And look into learning how to cook these things myself from scratch. But I will say, the packaging was disposed off accordingly to minimized that waste at least.

I love going to the movie theater, and I really wanted to watch the new Super Mario movie, and do a little window shopping. Thus instead of driving out to Clackamas Town Center, like I usually do, after class on Tuesday I took my longest, to date, ride on public transit. From Kenton out to Clackamas on the Max. The ride was fine, I have an annual TriMet card from work, so the cost was negligible, however the real challenge was timing. Because of the length of the ride there and back, plus movie, I had to be more attentive to that. This aided me in lowering my time at the mall, saving me both money and plastic waste as before this class I learned about PopMart. I also went through and made sure all the electronics I have are not on "sleep" more, or "quick start". And unpluggin what I could, air-fryer, pc, amps and speakers, toothbrush chargers, and lamps we dont use. Since we rent, there isn't much I can do about changing lightbulbs, they're all already LED ones and replaced by maintenance crew, appliances are there, and can't be replaced, but I did adjust the temperature on the fridge to lower energy consumption but stay within food safe window.

Eco-Challenge ONE:

This week we talked about waste, and upon reflection and inspection I realized a lot of my waste and trash comes groceries. So this week I challenged myself to both shop local, both in location and sourced, and meal prep as much as I could realistically fit in my freezer and fridge. To do this I took public transit to a local Co-op grocery store (Alberta Co-op Grocery) which is near my home. They source a majority of their products from local farms and farmers. Including the things I already had from previous grocery run I had enough for a few meals.

I also found I have a lot of meal prep containers that have gone unused for a while. So my roommate and I prepped our meals for the week;
3 pasta dishes (work lunch)
4 freezer breakfast bowls (days off breakfast)
6 dinner dishes (3 for work nights, and 3 for days off)

While I do have room to store more prepped meals to cut down on food packaging, I couldn't carry more back from the store and would need a second trip or a car. Considering hunting down or borrowing those little foldable wagons from one of my neighbors.

This grocery trip saved me 38 miles of driving round trip, cutting down my gas usage. This also prevented my stop at any fast food places cutting out single use containers and wrappers. And time, where the drive along would have been a little over an hour round trip.

Altogether I would say this was a great success, but can be improved upon by taking better inventory of what I already have, what I know is available at this grocery store, and a better way to bring things home.