"Recycling is the process of collecting and processing materials that would otherwise be thrown away as trash and turning them into new products" (Recycling). When trying to be more eco-friendly, most people just think of recycling. For this writing project, we were meant to choose an immersion experience and the one that I chose was to be more eco-friendly. My goal for this immersion experience was to take what I knew about being eco-friendly to another level. I really wanted to make an impact and I feel as if I succeeded in such.

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In an effort to be more eco-friendly, I used an app called "Joule Bug" to help me out. Joule Bug is an app that helps you track the ways you've been eco-friendly, while also giving ideas you might not have thought of in an effort to help you be more eco-friendly. When opening the app, you are taken to a home page where there are a dozen or more ways you can contribute to being more eco-friendly. When clicking on one of the eco-friendly options, you are given a description of what the task is and the opportunity to "buzz." Buzzing a task means you have successfully completed the task and you are awarded points. Your points add up and you are able to compete with others to see who has the most points. It also tells you what impact you have had on the environment. This app is a good incentive to help people try to be more eco-friendly. 

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With the help of Joule Bug, I partook in many eco-friendly activities. One of the activities that Joule Bug challenges you with is to turn off the water when brushing your teeth or shaving. I would do this task every morning and night when brushing my teeth. It. proved to be more difficult than anticipated. It was very easy to forget that I was trying to save water. Another task that the app gives you is to unplug or turn off any power strips when they're not in use. This was another task that was kind of difficult. Being someone living in the 21st century, I have a lot of electronics meaning I have a lot of devices plugged in. Having to unplug all of my cords every day was another easy thing to forget. You can save water when you put mulch around the base of your tree, rather than watering your tree all of the time. This task was easy. My dads a landscaper and always has mulch around the base of our trees, and I usually help him when he does this. A way to earn earth points is when you buy something from a thrift store. This is another thing that was fairly easy. I don't buy many clothes to begin with and whenever my sister goes thrifting, I go with her. Instead of washing your car, let it stay dirty or wait until it rains to keep the outside looking clean. This is another task that was pretty easy. I don't like wasting the money to wash my car so I wait for it to rain. A task that was proven difficult was finding energy star utilities. These utilities save energy and I just don't have the money to afford them.

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While I did all of the above, I also did so much more than just those few things. I took shorter showers, I let my dishes air dry instead of using the dishwasher, I carpooled, and more. When you think about it, these simple things don’t seem like much work, but when you incorporate them into your daily routine, it becomes much more difficult. For the time of my life that I’ve known about recycling and its benefits, I thought that I was already doing the most to do my part. After this experience, it turns out that I wasn’t even close to doing the most. This really opened my eyes as to the work you have to put in to be eco-friendly.

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One important factor in being eco-friendly deals with saving water. John Csiszar discusses how saving water will save energy. "Over-consumption of water leads to the over-consumption of another non-renewable resource, energy. Water in your home must be heated for a number of uses, such as cleaning and bathing, and this takes energy. Additionally, your local water utility must use energy to process and deliver water to your home, so the over-consumption of water requires more energy out of the utility company as well" (Csiszar). Since using water requires the use of energy, you're wasting energy when wasting water. The two go hand-in-hand and it's important that we save both as they both are vital for living. Elizabeth Morse, a writer for National Geographic, discusses non-renewable resources. "Non-renewable energy comes from sources that will run out or will not be replenished in our lifetimes—or even in many, many lifetimes. Most non-renewable energy sources are fossil fuels: coal, petroleum, and natural gas" (Morse). Tying this into what Csiszar said, most forms of energy that we use are non-renewable. Since they are non-renewable, we can never get them back and must do what we can to preserve them. This is why being eco-friendly is so vital to our living. We need to preserve what we have and in turn, need to help save the environment.

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At the end of my immersion experience, I ended up saving 575 pounds of carbon dioxide, I diverted 45 pounds of waste, and I saved 1.1 thousand gallons of water. To help put this into perspective, the average person wastes around 30 gallons of water per day. "According the the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2012, carbon dioxide (CO2) made up about 82% of calculated United States greenhouse gas emissions produced by humans" (Copy). This is about 70.6 tons of carbon dioxide or 141,200 pounds. When looking at it this way, I have decided to end my days making sure that I did everything I could to be more eco-friendly. I want to make a positive impact. For tonight, I close the app looking forward to a new day tomorrow in which I get to help the world be a little better of a place.

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11/13 Draft

 

Something that has been discussed for many years is the idea of being more eco-friendly. A lot of people typically view this as just recycling. While recycling plays a part in being eco-friendly, there is a lot more to it. Being eco-friendly is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as "not environmentally harmful." This is a very broad definition and as I stated before, more just think of this as recycling. 

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For my immersion experience, I practiced being eco-friendly. In order to be eco-friendly, I had the help of an app called "Joule Bug." Joule Bug is an app that helps you track the ways you've been eco-friendly, while also giving ideas you might not have thought of in an effort to help you be more eco-friendly. When opening the app, you are taken to a home page where there are a dozen or more ways you can contribute to being more eco-friendly. When clicking on one of the eco-friendly options, you are given a description of what the task is and the opportunity to "buzz." Buzzing a task means you have successfully completed the task and you are awarded points. Your points add up and you are able to compete with others to see who has the most points. It also tells you what impact you have had on the environment. This app is a good incentive to help people try to be more eco-friendly. At the end of my immersion experience, I ended up saving 281 pounds of carbon dioxide, I diverted 17 pounds of waste, and I saved 589 gallons of water. To help put this into perspective, the average person wastes around 30 gallons of water per day. 

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I found that trying to be eco-friendly was more difficult than I had anticipated. There was a lot more to it than I expected. Going into my immersion experience, I was thinking that I would just be recycling, using more environmentally friendly items for my food and drinks, and possibly trying to save some gas. While I did all of the above, I also did so much more than just those few things. I took shorter showers, when brushing my teeth I didn’t leave the water running when the toothbrush was in my mouth, I unplugged all cords I had plugged into outlets, I let my dishes air dry instead of using the dishwasher, and so much more. When you think about it, these simple things don’t seem like much work, but when you incorporate them into your daily routine, it becomes much more difficult. For the time of my life that I’ve known about recycling and its benefits, I thought that I was already doing the most to do my part. After this experience, it turns out that I wasn’t even close to doing the most. This really opened my eyes as to the work you have to put in to be eco-friendly.

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One important factor in being eco-friendly deals with saving water. John Csiszar discusses how saving water will save energy. "Over-consumption of water leads to the over-consumption of another non-renewable resource, energy. Water in your home must be heated for a number of uses, such as cleaning and bathing, and this takes energy. Additionally, your local water utility must use energy to process and deliver water to your home, so the over-consumption of water requires more energy out of the utility company as well" (Csiszar). Since using water requires the use of energy, you're wasting energy when wasting water. The two go hand-in-hand and it's important that we save both as they both are vital for living. Elizabeth Morse, a writer for National Geographic, discusses non-renewable resources. "Non-renewable energy comes from sources that will run out or will not be replenished in our lifetimes—or even in many, many lifetimes. Most non-renewable energy sources are fossil fuels: coal, petroleum, and natural gas" (Morse). Tying this into what Csiszar said, most forms of energy that we use are non-renewable. Since they are non-renewable, we can never get them back and must do what we can to preserve them. This is why being eco-friendly is so vital to our living. We need to preserve what we have and in turn, need to help save the environment.

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10/18 Draft

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For my immersion experience, I decided to try and be more eco-friendly. In an effort to be more eco-friendly, I used the app 'JouleBug' and watched the YouTube channel 'Sustainably Vegan.' 

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I've not yet finished my immersion experience, while it's something that I want to spend a longer period of time on in order to integrate being more eco-friendly into my life in the changing seasons. 

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As of right now, I use the JouleBug app on a daily basis to log how I contribute to being more green and as a way to find more ideas on ways that I can be green. The immersion experience has been slightly difficult as I have to be more self-aware of what I'm doing in an attempt to save energy and not contribute to pollution. 

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Sources

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Csiszar, John. “The Importance of Saving Water.” Sciencing, 2 July 2019, sciencing.com/the-importance-of-saving-water-4965301.html.

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“How Much CO2 Do We Produce?” Mathematics for Sustainability: Student Blog Spring 2015, 4 Feb. 2015, sites.psu.edu/mfsblog/2015/02/04/how-much-co2-do-we-produce/.

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Morse, Elizabeth. “Non-Renewable Energy.” National Geographic Society, 14 Feb. 2013, www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/non-renewable-energy/.

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“Recycling Basics.” EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, 12 Nov. 2020, www.epa.gov/recycle/recycling-basics.