Tag: Soap

I’m only two weeks into my four months of nothing new and I can already relate to Kristin’s need for motivation months. Given that lifestyle changes take time and intentionality, it might take me a few weeks (or months) to get all of my goals implemented. If you’re trying something like this, maybe start with just a few goals and then add some more once you’ve got those pretty well established. For this update, I’ll go ahead and get started with the goals that I have been working on, and then I’ll list what I still need to start working on before sharing a few stories.

Goals that I implemented:

• Tool 1 Stop Shopping goal: no new things except food and gas/try to buy local if new
  • Update: $0 added to fund
• Tool 4 Buy Local goal: buy from local restaurants and no chains/fast food
  • Update: 1 local restaurant
• Tool 5 Turn Off The Lights goal: no phone until after breakfast and computer off by 9:30pm
  • Update: I had my phone on once before breakfast to see if I was called in for work and had my computer on later than 9:30pm two times. Let’s say $3 in fund, because the punishment is already elevated cortisol levels and delayed melatonin release for sleep onset.
• Tool 6 Consume Less Plastic goal: $5 fine for any disposable plastic utensils/straws/plates/cups
  • Update: $0 added to fund (yay)
• Tool 7 Detox Yourself goal: make my own soap
  • Update: I made 3 bars of soap that look like flies trapped in amber because fossils are cool. See photo below. Also, I would love to make you some of my novel soap if you would like, just let me know.
• Tool 8 Make Stuff goal: make things and use what I have for gifts
  • Update: a gift recipient enjoyed their homemade gift
• Tool 9 Clean Your Closet goal: donate things I don’t need
  • Update: collected clothes and prepared them for donation pickup in a week
• Tool 10 Track Your Trash goal: turn off water in shower when not rinsing
  • Update: I usually remembered, but caught myself zoning out once or twice with the water on and then turned it off. Let’s say $2 in fund.

Goals that I still need to implement:

• Tool 2 Grow Some Food goal: plant beans after looking into temperatures and making sure it will be warm enough for them
• Tool 3 Eat Local goals: look into and try to visit more Orlando and Kissimmee farmers markets and local produce; start tracking meatless day/part-time vegetarian
• Tool 6 Consume Less Plastic goal: consider a mini-goal of only buying products with recyclable packaging for a certain amount of time
• Tool 7 Detox Yourself goal: detox laundry detergent by buying greener brand
• Tool 9 Clean Your Closet goal: research textile recycling as an option for holey, old clothes
• Tool 10 Track Your Trash goals: research waste collection/recycling in Orlando and Kissimmee, look into visiting a landfill, look into composting, consider doing a waste/water audit and carrying trash, research reusable feminine products, consider not using paper towels for personal bathroom trips for a certain amount of time
• Tool 11 Guzzle Less Gas goals: begin tracking gas usage and train usage, calculate my carbon footprint, ultimately donate my naught new fund to offset my carbon footprint at the end of the four months, conduct cost-benefit analysis of trading in my RAV4 for a hybrid or electric car
• Additional goals: track time volunteering and interning and working, find and apply to interesting summer opportunities, determine motivation months based on larger-scale goals
• Nothing New Fund this week: $5; Current total:  $14

I still have quite a bit of research to do in order to implement some more goals, but I’ll get there eventually. Now for story time.

Through my job as an educator at the Orlando Science Center, I present an OUC (Orlando Utilities Commission) grant-funded program in elementary schools. In the fall, we educated fifth graders about renewable energy and solar power, and now that it is spring, we are presenting on water conservation. I gave one of those presentations on Monday, and I’ll probably be giving more over the next few weeks. A cheesy joke that I use for both presentations during the slide about safety is as follows: If I get up at 4:30am (which I actually had to do on the first day I made this joke) and I’m running late and I want to both take a shower and eat breakfast, should I take my toaster into the shower with me? No, because you should never eat soggy waffles. You also shouldn’t because water is a good conductor of electricity, so you could get electrocuted. (That’s the end.) The curriculum could use an update so that it actually teaches kids about ways that they can conserve water, and there is also a need to streamline a few other things that are very logistically cumbersome for the educators, but you get my point.

Time to be frank. It is great to teach kids about sustainability and conservation, but it is also important to practice what you preach. On Tuesday night, I attended an OUC Community Forum (as I did a few times in December), and it was the same as the previous ones that I attended. OUC is a utility company that provides electricity to much of Orlando, and on their website they like to brag about their green initiatives and their use of solar power. However, if you actually look at statistics, they tell a different story. At the meetings, they shared that OUC’s current portfolio mix (or the combination of energy sources they are currently using to generate electricity) is 54% natural gas, 41% coal, 3% nuclear, 1% landfill gas, and 1% solar. According to OUC’s most recent financial report from 2018 (which I read on my phone during the meeting because I had heard the information multiple times already), the overall fuel mix from 2018 was 50.3% coal, 41.7% natural gas, 5.7% nuclear, and 2.2% (unspecified) renewable. If the numbers that they provided during the meetings represent the overall 2019 fuel mix, then there may have been some changes in regard to which fossil fuel OUC is the most reliant on, but the percentage of solar has not significantly grown in the last five years. Renewable energy, which includes other sources besides solar, constituted only 1% of the fuel mix in 2014 and it only grew to 2.2% through 2018 (and 2019 it appears). During the meeting, OUC shared that its portfolio mix for 2025 is going to be 50% natural gas, 33% coal, 13% solar, 3% nuclear, and 1% landfill gas. They were trying to highlight how much they plan to expand solar, ignoring the fact that they plan to continue burning the most carbon-heavy of fossil fuels to generate a third of their electricity five precious years from now.

Obviously I could go on and on, but I’ll end with #DoBetterOUC. Cultivate your vehement opposition to injustice and may thee use naught new.