Renny Ratana

For the nature eco challenge this week a lot of the recommendations that I am capable of doing I am already apart of from my tree stewardship and tree team volunteering. If I join anymore I'll get in trouble for stretching myself too thin. I didn't have much in the way of duties in those respects this week besides following up on the tree walk to see what we can do better next time and see what the other team is planning on for their walk in September,

This week for the consumerism stand point, I worked on repairing my old Ipad rather than replacing it with a new one as apple likes to kill any product older than five years. This connects with trying to combat the goals of planned obsolescence as well as reducing my own consumerism. Certainly not without it's frustrations though, I don't have it fully fixed but it's a work in progress and I'm sure I'll get it back to mostly operational soon,

This week in light of the transportation discussion I decided to try and walk as many places this week. Admittedly it was mostly for groceries but it was great to walk and get to see my neighbors and talk about how their front yard gardens are going. I even managed to pick up an interesting book from one of the lending libraries on the way home!

This week in light of the chapter on community this week, I went out and participated in my neighborhoods Porchlandia event. We had the street shut down to allow for folks to sit or mingle while bands played from the porch of a neighbors house. It was awesome to get to go out and spend time with my neighbors and meet the Mayor! (A kitty named hunter).

The information this week about the virtual water usage was kinda eye opening to think about what all goes into producing something for consumption. Again, in line with my food post, and also trying to stick with low consumption for purchasing from last week we haven’t really purchased anything that could be swapped for lower water consumption. We already participate in most water saving etiquettes with our appliances in hopes of lowering the water bill (clothing doesn’t need to be washed every time, low use shower head, full dishwasher) so have decided to return back to our Californian roots of if it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down since our toilet is not water efficient and I have the bladder of an 80yo. For obvious reasons, not sharing a picture of that but I will share a picture of the shower head! Water efficient shower heads often have better water pressure as an aside.

In the food waste category for this week’s

eco challenge I’ve started freezing my food from the get go to minimize the risk of food waste. My diet already is pretty limited or already bulk pre-stocked for the next couple months so freezing my more seasonal food items, fruits and vegetables seems like the best action since I don’t always get around to eating the food on time. This has the added bonus of reducing the need for ac in the evenings (I leave the fruit out on the counter in the morning for a chilled treat at night now).

While I usually try to take public transportation, when the distance is a lot further than a couple miles I usually drive to save time. This Saturday I was one of the volunteers at the TeaFestPDX and decided to take the train in. It was a little over an hour in transit but it was pretty nice and meditative. Not many others on the train on Saturday mornings and I had some time to read and sightsee the city. I definitely think I’ll do this option again.

In light of our lessons this week on consumption and waste I decided to use a solid dish detergent option in place of liquid as I had run out. This eliminates the need for plastic packaging and also reduces water weight in transit. The solid detergent will also last a lot longer overall and doesn’t utilize any petroleum dyes that many of the current detergents use.

In the past I’ve tried doing the same with shampoo/conditioner bars but haven’t found any that don’t leave my hair oily afterwards so if anyone has a recommendations I’m open!

Community opportunities coming in July!