Journal/Reflection

After looking at my journal, I am reflecting on how much on what I use can impact the environment. It is crazy that we do not realize what we are doing till we sit down to take a moment and jot it all down and reflect.

In my journal, I identified some places where there could be potential harm towards the environment. Some things that I picked up on were, the amount of times I do laundry (a lot ), the amount of transportation I use, (driving, buses, train, subways, etc), the printing of my tickets constantly, and whenever I eat or drink something in plastic when I can use something more sustainable.

Some things that I noticed were that I can save a lot of paper – by incorporating more digital platforms. For example, I usually buy my tickets and transportation passes in the machine and I print them, but I can save paper by buying my tickets online on my app. I usually try to do this as much as I can, but sometimes it’s hard if my phones dying or if I don’t have much connection. By printing my passes and tickets, (tickets that often get thrown out) after use, even my little action by getting them online can make a small difference. I use various ways of transportation, but I’m not really sure how else I could fix that. Especially that I am going into the city. I hope to see more improvement in the NYC/NJ transportation, so they can be better for our city but still be reliable. My car runs on gas, but I know in the future I wanted to venture into an electric powered car, which will definitely benefit for how much I am driving weekly. Another thing that I tend to do, is that I laundry way too often. I wear an item once, and then I plop it into the laundry bin to wash. I definitely can make some time to hand-wash some items, as that’s how my mom washes some of her more delicate pieces. It’s just really time consuming so It’s difficult, but something I can venture into. After hearing about the various ways to get rid of stains (Putting them in the freezer!), I am in awe of the various ways they are to be better to the environment, once you really think. Being more eco friendly obviously takes more time than we think, but it can be worth it when the little things add up and make a difference in the environment. After noting down my day to day actions, I can definitely say that I am determined to be more aware of my surroundings, and what my actions are, and how I can be a better and more sustainable person.