Sustainable Lifestyle Tips: Celebrating Arbor Day

Happy last day of April! It seems like April has brought so many showers, I really hope May brings some flowers. ;)

So today I want to write about some volunteering I did this past weekend and on Friday (Arbor Day!) Technically it's not a consumerism driven sustainable practice tip, but in a sense it could be. My next sustainable lifestyle tip is to go outside and partake in gardening, planting, or a mix of both! While it may not involve substituting one purchase for a more environmentally friendly purchase, it certainly can be seen as a sustainable and fun experience, rather than paying for a movie, or paying to go out somewhere.

At the GMU-Fairfax campus, the Green Patriots supported by our Patriot Green Fund (PFG) hosted an amazing Arbor Day volunteering event:

 Reforest Mason! 

Through the PFG, the Green Patriots were able to work the GMU grounds, the Office of Sustainability, as well as an AWESOME local non-profit, Earth Sangha to get the project underway. This included mapping out a location on campus that would receive newly planted trees, signing up volunteers, and procuring the trees! 

While I only participated in the volunteer aspect, I can really appreciate the project as a whole. Thursday and Friday, I was able to spend my time outside by our Rappahannock Parking deck in an area that was mostly unused grass. After 2 hours on Thursday night, and over 4 hours on Friday, over a dozen new trees and shrubs were planted by volunteers on campus! This was an extremely worthwhile event and I got to meet cool students, and use sweet tools (see below).

I really hope I can come back to campus in 5 to 10 years and see my trees thriving! And I hope that Mason will have more of these events in the future. Sometimes it's just nice to work with some tools and get some dirt on your hands. :)

In addition to Thursday and Friday's Reforest Mason volunteering, I also helped work at the Innovation Food Forest (IFF) on campus. The IFF is based upon natural ecological models and uses the concepts of permaculture. I spent most of my time spreading mulch and compost necessary to allow the garden to thrive, but I hope in the future I will have more time to volunteer in the IFF since I want to learn more about all the plants in it. 

Overall, I highly recommended finding something outside to work on as an activity for the day. Either with friends, or just with friends met at the event. These opportunities are definitely great sustainable lifestyle tips. 

Sustainable Practice Tips: Reusable Mugs, Water Bottles, and everything in between

Good evening all!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Earth Day this Tuesday! This whole week has been full of Earth Week events at GMU - and I hope everyone has had a chance to go to some of these events.

Tonight I'm posting about another sustainable practice tip: 

Reusable Beverage containers! (Mugs, cups, bottles, etc.)

If you're like me, you usually find yourself sipping on any certain beverage whether it's water, juice, tea, or coffee. As a busy college student, there may not always be time to make your own coffee, tea, or other drinks. However, always purchasing these beverages really builds up the plastic or paper cups used for only a temporary time (and only to be thrown away shortly).

A solution to this wasteful consumption is to use your own reusable cup or mug. Most coffee or other food stops (such as our on-campus Starbucks, La Pat, or Jazzman's) also take off a discount for using your own cup.

Stylish Reusable Cup I use for my Iced Coffee! 

Pros: 

• In addition to a discount, you can show your personality through your cups or mugs (once I had my Star Wars mug and received not only a great compliment but a good conversation afterwards!)
• Your beverage usually stays better insulated in personal/reusable containers
• Having your own water bottle is handy and will help keep you hydrated by motivating you to drink more water

Cons:

• It may be hard to remember your reusable container, but with any new habit it will take a little practice to get used to having your reusable container with you
• You may just get as addicted as I am when it comes to reusable water bottles and personal mugs ;)

Awesome stores like REI fuel my water bottle addiction

I hope this new post on the sustainable practice tip using reusable containers. I also hope most of of you can start your own collection of reusable items to avoid paper, plastic, or Styrofoam cups that end up as trash or litter. 

Sustainable Practice Tips: Reusable Bags

Hello again all!

In my first post, I briefly touched upon Sustainable Consumption and my experience with the idea. With the brief introduction of the idea, I mentioned the hope in individual choices.

The first part of my START project involved a survey because I wanted to know about people's current sustainable practices. (If interested, the link to that survey is here.) Since beginning my survey, I have learned that more people have heard about Environmentally Conscious shopping than not - and this makes me hopeful in terms of overall sustainable consciousness. After the results of that first question, many of the questions after that were pretty widespread in peoples' sustainable actions. A future outlook for this project would be to possibly observe a large amount of people to note their sustainable practices.

Going off my survey, one of the first questions asked about reusable bag use.
I am not exactly sure when reusable bags really boomed in popularity, but recently I believe that they have indeed increased in popularity as they are now sold and available at nearly every retail store.

One of my first tips for consumers is to put these reusable bags in a place where you can use them easily and not forget when you get to the store. I think that the first few times, a shopper tends to forget they have a reusable bag and just purchase another at the store. Don't be too guilty at first if this happens because doing this a couple times will probably allow you to have 5+ different bags. But I suggest to begin putting the bags in your car and if you have a fold-able one - in purses/backpacks. If you go to the store and see your reusable bags in your car, you simply remember to bring it into the store. Once it becomes a habit, you can even start to only use reusable bags, even when you are doing larger shopping (such as groceries).

This is the foldable bag I keep in my purse when I forget my large reusable bags.

*Also, if you happen to be only purchasing one or two items, do know you have the option to decline a bag and just carry the item. This is also a good sustainable alternative than having a plastic bag for a small item. 

Pro's:

• Most stores will give you a discount ($0.05 - $0.25) for using your own bag
• Using reusable bags will stop the build-up of plastic grocery bags in your house
• Reusable bags are sometimes stylish!
• Reusable bags can carry more and are easier to carry - so the challenge of carrying plastic bags in one trip is no longer an issue (I know we all do this!)
• Helpful to the environment!

Con's:

• It may be hard at first to remember to bring in your reusable bag every time you go shopping
• If you are starting to use reusable bags, you may have to purchase your first few to be able to fit all your groceries or bought items in them (my suggestion here is to be on the look-out for events where organizations and companies hand out these bags for free!)

Here are just a few of my reusable bags! Some I've purchased (from Joann Fabrics, Giant, etc.) and others I've received for free at events (XM was at a convention and lime green from a GMU Health & Fitness expo!)

Overall, this action can be a first step for individuals looking to start small in their sustainable lifestyle change. I definitely adapted this as a sustainable choice and I do enjoy being able to depend on my reusable bags rather than plastic bags everywhere I go. 

Earth Week event Line ups!

Hello all!

In my short bio, I mention that I'm an Environmental and Sustainability Studies major at George Mason University (GMU). While I probably celebrate all year round, Spring is known for having official Earth Day on April 22nd. At Mason, we not only have an Earth Day celebration, but an Earth Week as well!

In this blog's spirit of sustainable living tips and to-do's I went ahead and typed up below some of the events going on the next week or so at Mason just as another medium for the information to get out there. I will be attending most of these events and hope to share my experiences at them. While below will be the brief description and schedule of some events, I intend to further connect the events and their themes to the topic of this blog and sustainable living.

Friday, April 18th, 2014
Sustainable Foods Day
10:00 am - 3: 00 pm

• Sponsored by Mason Dining and Student Government, this is probably an extremely looked forward to event because who doesn't just love food! The event will be held at the University Hall Lawn and will include a farmers market hosted by Keany Produce company. 
• Also on Friday, the GMU Campus Kitchens Project (CKP) will be hosting an outreach event from 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm. The CKP is a hunger-relief program that recovers and redistributes food to the local community instead of just having the food become excess waste. Some of my classmates have been working on this project, and I even had a chance to volunteer with them, so I am hoping they are successful in their big outreach event. 

• During this event, GMU's Organic Garden Association (GOGA) plans to also hold garden hours from 11:00 am - 2:00 pm. This is at the Potomac Heights vegetable garden and should be a great experience because the garden itself is so much fun to be at working in. I have worked at the garden before in a previous semester and it is truly one of the coolest things on campus. 

Tuesday, April 22nd, 2014
Earth Day Celebration
10:00 am - 3:00 pm

• On the official Earth Day, GMU's Prince William Campus will be hosting their celebration. I will personally be helping out the table and hoping to engage people about the environment and enjoy some activities. 

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2014

Local Beer Tasting at the Mason Rathskeller

6:00 pm - 8:00 pm

• Another cool event during Earth Week is going to be a local beer tasting in the Mason Rathskeller (Sorry, 21+ only!) While this is one of the few events that isn't free, I'm still looking forward to this event because I am interested in trying beer from Heritage Brewing Company right nearby in Manassas, Virginia. The cost will be $12 in advance and $15 at the door. With 2- 14oz beers and unlimited tastings of the 5 Heritage beers, the event will certainly be worthwhile. 

Thursday, April 24th, 2014

Green Job Networking Fair

10:00 am - 2:00 pm

• Another HUGE event going on during Earth Week is the Green Job Networking Fair. The Office of Sustainability and Career Services is hosting the event and many local environmental organizations will be there for networking opportunities. Being so close to D.C., having this opportunity is a big deal for any college student interested in internship, employment, and even volunteer opportunities. Some of the organizations who will be there include: the U.S. Fish and wildlife Service, Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and many others. Since this is such a great opportunity, pre-registration is required: here is the registration link!

Friday, April 25th, 2014 

Reforest Mason

10:00 am - 2:00 pm

• Another event I will be helping at is the Reforest Mason project near the Rappahannock Parking Deck. Due to all the construction on campus, many of the existing trees have been knocked down which has affected some of the campus ecosystem life. Fortunately, through the Patriot Green Fund, our Mason Green Patriots have been awarded money for a reforestation project on campus. This event also has a sign up page: located here!

I hope that my experience at the events are worthwhile and I look forward to blogging more about them as they occur!

What is Sustainable Consumption?

A main focus of my Sustainability Transformation Action Research Team (START) project is consumption. More specifically, I am interested in Sustainable Consumption
(And maybe one day, completely sustainable lifestyles!)

Now in order to understand the term itself, I decided to look up the words individually first.

Sustainable - the ability to be maintained at a certain level 

Consumption - the use of a resource 

So, when the two words are put together, the main idea of Sustainable Consumption is to use resources at a maintainable level. 

For the most part in my classes, we study all sorts of resources that should be consumed sustainably (coal, oil, fish in the ocean, to name a few) but just aren't. Sometimes the doom and gloom can really sink in when you learn about international consumption that most times you can't personally control. 

Source: http://environmentalgeography.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/p0352.gif 

After the doom and gloom Environmental & Sustainability Studies (ESS) students usually brainstorm a number of possible solutions to most environmental issues. Many times, these possibilities turn into action via grassroots movements. Other times though individuals become aware of solutions within themselves. In my opinion, when it comes to consumption, THERE'S HOPE because as an individual, you can control exactly what you consume, when you consume it, and how much of it you consume.

[Story time] In my personal life, I came to this realization that I could at least control my own consumer during my freshman year at George Mason University. For my English 101 class, we were given the opportunity to watch some lectures, and while I don't remember what lecture series it was, I do remember that a woman named Annie Leonard was there. And she talked about the Story of Stuff (see video below).

This 21 minute video definitely opened my eyes to the way people have been consuming items, and more specifically, how I may have been consuming items unsustainably. 

Since watching this video, I changed to an ESS major. Now in my last semester as an undergrad I know that the video along with my classes has shaped the way I look at stuff. I have tried to change my ways to try consuming less and consuming products that are more environmentally friendly. It is a hard task not knowing what really are environmentally friendly options, but my goal is to try and really weed out those optionsto pass on to the next person, in hopes that more and more people look at living sustainably in a heavily consumerist world.


Focusing back on my START project, I have chosen to start this blog to have not only more sustainable topics/informational posts like this one, but also "tips and to-do's" for actions towards more sustainable consumption. In addition, for Earth Month and Week at George Mason University, I will be posting various event opportuities (and summaries for those unable to attend) throughout April. It should be a great month and I hope to inform (maybe even sustainably entertain others!)