Over the past couple of weeks, I have significantly decreased the amount of note taking paper which was one of my initial goals. Not only does the use of paper create waste in that material, but the production of paper requires a significant amount of water. Although it depends on the factory, it takes an average more than 3 gallons of water to create a single piece of paper (Garber, 2012). As seen in the pictures above,

I have also decreased the amount of plastic recyclables which also require a large amount of water to produce. For example it takes approximately 22 gallons of water to make a pound of plastic (Hidden Water in Everyday Products, 2018).

I am currently looking to buy more products in bulk and/or use products with minimal or no single use packaging. I recently purchased a shampoo bar from the Lush Cosmetics store that did not come with any packaging. Although my previous shampoo was approximately $5 and the handmade soap bar was $13, I believe in the long run the product will be worth the price. I am interested to see how long the product will last. My next goal is to find a product that is less expensive.

Due to the fact that I eat the majority of my meals at the Uvic cafeteria, I find myself eating a significant amount salad dressing that comes in small containers. On the Uvic website, it has been stated that these packets cannot be recycled and must go in the landfill bin (see link #3 below). I am interested in looking into how the products can be changed into recyclable products because I can only imagine the amount of waste they create.

Sources used:

1. How Much Paper Can Digital Services Save? (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.faxcompare.com/blog/much-paper-can-digital-services-save/
2. The Hidden Water in Everyday Products. (2018, December 13). Retrieved from https://www.watercalculator.org/water-use/the-hidden-water-in-everyday-products/
3. https://www.uvic.ca/sustainability/topics/waste/recycle/plastics/index.php

 

Within the last 2 weeks I have accumulated more recyclables than I had initially planned. Once I got back from reading week I needed to do a large grocery shop, which is why there is more recycling than previously predicted, especially with the amount of cardboard boxes I used. When I was home (in North Van), I encourage my parents to cut back on their plastic recyclables and it did make a small dent in the amount of recyclables they typically use within a week, according to my mamma. Similarly,  I tried to improve the amount of plastic I was using individually. I tried to cut back on both soft and hard plastics to see if I could still eat according to my diet and dietary restrictions. I was able to cut these plastics back by quite a large amount with only one plastic wrapper from my soy cheese. Additionally, I used more glass and metal containers like jam jars and which I can easily re-use. Overall, I’m pleased with the cutbacks I made on plastics, however, I do believe I can improve and reduce even more.

My goals for next weeks are to cut out more cardboard and try to find alternative food options to accommodating to my dietary restrictions without using as many recyclables. I would really like to get as close to zero-waste as I can. Because I do live in cluster I believe I can strive to meet these goals and do my part for the planet.

 

 

This graph shows the varying types of recyclables that I have collected over the past two weeks. As a student living in resident, this graph clearly shows the different types of most commonly utilized recyclables on campus. The most common of all being plastic based products which come from the smoothie bottles, yogurt containers, hummus containers, and plastic berry cartons among others that I have gone through.

During this week, I aimed to get a foundational understanding of the most common types of recyclables that I tend to accumulate. By finding out which recyclables I produced the most, I was able to formulate an idea of what I must cut down on over the course of this project. My goal is to reduce the weekly amount of recyclables I produce (particularly plastic based products which trended the highest during my base study). To do so, I will only be using my own reusable plastic containers and utensils when getting food at meals as well as avoid buying products that are stored in plastic containers or sold with plastic packaging and instead buying products sold in bulk when going to the grocery store.

Over the past two weeks I have created a large amount of recyclables. Paper and metal makes up most of the bulk however glass, and plastics also make up some part of the recyclables. With all recyclables combined, there is a total of 30 items, though by the end of this project, I hope to reduce my recyclables below 10.

 

I live in University of Victoria’s cluster residence with 3 other people. We have to cook our own meals which creates more recyclables and garbage than the average first year university student. While we mostly buy food individually, we share some food like butter, milk, and condiments so not all my recyclables are mine alone. As mentioned before, we produce a lot of paper and metal recyclables. Most people produce lots of paper as it is one of the main packaging materials. However, we produce an unordinary amount of metal cans, though we do not toss these cans into the recycling like everything else. Since the start of the school year, we have been taking all our metal cans and some glass and plastic bottles to the Return-It depot in exchange for money. While this is a good start, I need to do more to reduce the total amount of recyclables I create.

 

Within these 2 photo’s this is the garbage I have accumulated within the last 2- 4 weeks. The reason I am adding the garbage from before this assignment is because I want to really see the garbage I am producing realistically and improve my habits. So, in the first photo I have some cardboard boxes for some crackers, a facial spray, and others. Additionally, I have some plastic bottle/containers and a small bag of garbage (not photographed). Within the second photo I have 2 glass jars, a tomato paste tube, an almond milk jug, another box of crackers, and plastic spinach box (half photographed, my roommate took out the recycling before I could get a photo).

 

Due to the fact that I live in cluster residence, I have the luxury of cooking for myself, but I also accumulate more recycling than some other resident students might. With reading break coming up I’ll be with my family who creates even more garbage. My goal for the next 2 weeks is to not only cut back on my recycling by about ⅓ by cutting back on the crackers and buying spinach in bunches (without plastic). Also, I would like encourage my family to purchase less recyclables like plastic containers for fruit and vegetables.

The pictures below show the recycling I have accumulated over the past two week period (January 29^th-February 12^th). There is a mix of paper, plastics, metals and glass. I have 19 pieces of recycling in total and hope by the end of this project to reduce that to 9 pieces – approximately a 50% decrease.

Type of recyclable:	Number of items:
Paper	11
Plastics	2
Glass	4
Metal	2

I am currently living in cluster housing within residence at UVic. I cook and clean for myself, so naturally need to use a lot more products on a daily basis than if I were on the meal plan. I don’t produce as much recycling as I thought I would, but I am going to try and implement specific change to see if it is realistic and sustainable for me. To cut down on my aluminum can recycling I plan on buying beans in bulk using reusable containers and then cooking them myself. To reduce my glass jars/containers I plan on bringing them to a local zero waste shop where people can drop off good quality containers for others to use instead of using disposables. This means the containers go from single use to multi-use, and they can potentially decrease other peoples disposables as well.  I acknowledge that I will have some limitations, like the transitional period between still having recyclables and buying the alternatives, and having both a time and money constraint that can sometimes make it a struggle to find or buy more eco-friendly products that allow me to go waste free.

 

Over the last two week, I have accumulated a decent amount of recyclables. These recyclables include seven boxes, one can, one glass jar, five pieces of paper, and nine plastic bottles/containers.

I live with two other people and thus some of these items were not solely mine, and some products were used over a longer period of time, such as the large salsa or soap container, however, they happened to finish during this two week period. Additionally, there were recyclables that I could not avoid such as one box and two plastic bottles for medications, or three of the pieces of paper that were handed in as an assignment and had to be hard copies. None the less, I was slightly surprised at the amount of recycling I accumulated over the past two weeks.

Moving forward, my goal is to reduce my recyclable waste by approximately 30% by the next update. In order to achieve this, I will begin to shop more at The Zero Waste Emporium for items like tofu, Dijon, and salsa (among others that often come in recyclable containers at a regular supermarket), and I will go to West Coast Refill for hygiene products like soap and shampoo as well as cleaning products. Finally, I would also like to try to make my own oat milk to replace my 4L jug of almond milk.

I would also like to do more research into the recycling industry by next update, as I have not had the time to do much research yet. I hope to have a better idea of how my recycling impacts the environment and how much of my recyclables are actually recycled.

This image shows the amount of recycling which I accumulated over the past two weeks. The left side of the image includes soft and hard plastics which consists smoothie bottles, fruit containers, noodle wrappers, carrot wrappers and a couple miscellaneous items. The right side of the image has several pieces of scrap paper, gum packaging and other assorted papers. In addition to these items, I also accumulated 5 paper coffee cups. My goal for the upcoming weeks is two cut down the amount of recycling by half in the next two weeks. I plan on doing this by bringing my own reusable cups to the cafes on campus as well as buying more products in bulk. I have also noticed that I have accumulated a lot of paper for note taking therefore, I will be taking the majority of my notes for my classes on my computer to save paper.

Being a first year student who currently lives on residence, a lot of the garbage I accumulate is left and sorted by the cafeteria staff. It is therefore hard to judge the amount of items which are actually cleaned and recycled. I am currently looking into how I can increase the chance of everything that is recyclable to be recycled. The products which I buy most of at the cafeteria, are milk, juice, fruit containers and a few paper plates. I am also planning on cutting out the paper plates from my waste because I believe they are unnecessary and I only really use them when I am in a rush.