capstone spring 2026

For this week, I ultimately decided to go for a walk outside. It's something that I wanted to do more of and sense I was spending the weekend at the coast. I thought this would be a great opportunity. I walked along the beach and around with my friends. I had fun and great time. This is something I am looking forward to do in the future. It...

This week I decided to try and reduce my waste by creating an art project for an architecture class using only reused materials. I'm an architecture major, and in my program we do lots of hands on art projects and model making. This does however require us to purchase a lot of material such as wood, cardboard, and chipboard. People don't...

This week’s discourse on waste was quite eye opening, especially the portion of class where we went through our own garbage. When rummaging through my garbage, I noticed that: 1) almost all of the waste came from food packaging and 2) most of it was either plastic or cardboard. Being an environmental science major, sustainable and green...

This week I tried to reduce the amount of takeout coffee cups I use. I usually buy 1 to 2 cups of coffee a day, so I decided to get a reusable coffee cup that I can just clean at home instead of throwing out 10 containers a week. Decided to reduce this first because it is one of my biggest throwaway items and I can easily weigh how much I am...

This week, I reduced food packaging waste by preparing 8 20-ounce containers of food, 2 of which I’ve already eaten, instead of buying ready-to-eat meals and snacks. Everything is weighed out, and this system has already proven effective in satiety, meal timing, and improving my eating habits. While building the recipe for each container, I...

I have been using a lot of single-use plastic or paper utensils and cups this year. Something to think about, too, is plastic lining in paper cups or in canned goods. It almost feels inevitable to have some form of plastic in our food products. It also makes me think of how studies have shown an increasing amount of microplastics in people's...

When you start to get serious about trying to recycle and reducing your waste, you begin to understand how broken up the system is. Recycling is definitely not putting everything in the recycling bin. If I need to recycle the steel in the mini propane tanks for my grill, that is a specific recycling center for hazardous waste. If I need to...

I chose to commit to only printing double sided from now on. As a student, I have to print a lot of papers and projects, so acknowledging this commitment feels good, no matter how small the impact may be!

I checked my water footprint using the water calculator. I've actually done a personal study of my water footprint before, and lucky for me, I live in a building that doesn't let me use a lot of water. This is mostly because of low-flow toilets, I handwash my few dishes, low-flow shower heads, and so on. Where most of my water use comes from...

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...