As a college student it is understood that all students have many priorities in their life, often times living a green life style isn't high on the agenda, but a few easy and simple life changes can go a long way in reducing one's overall carbon footprint.
1. Don't use paper towels - this creates waste that is not needed, air dry your hand if there is not an air blower or if at home use a towel.
2. Use a reusable shopping bag - often times both paper and plastic bags get thrown away, this is an easy alternative to reduce waste.
3. Use bars of soap - both bars of shampoo and bars of soap are better for the environment compared to bottled shower products.
4. Invest in a 'pola' phone case- 'pola' is a company that makes 100% compostable
5. Vegan diet - the most sustainable diet is a vegan diet.
6. Turn it off - Energy conservation is one of the most important things you can do to reduce your carbon footprint. Leaving your electricals on standby needlessly uses up energy – hit the off switch and you could see huge improvements
7. Recycle everything - You can recycle almost everything, from batteries to paper to cars. Before you throw it away, take a minute to find out if you could recycle it instead.
8. Use eco-friendly cleaning products - A lot of cleaning products have a lot of harmful chemicals in them that aren’t environmentally friendly to create or dispose of. In fact, repeated exposure to these cleaning products can affect your health as well as the environment. Green cleaning products use more natural and organic methods of cleaning which are far less harmful.
9. Buy local - From clothes to food, the closer to home these products are made and bought, the less carbon is created with their transportation.
10. Grow your own - Growing your own veg isn’t just a good way to save money, it’s also a great way to cut down your carbon footprint and be eco-friendly. Don’t have any outside space? Windowsill boxes are a great way to brighten up your view, filter the air coming into your home and offer plenty of space for herbs and small vegetable patches.
Food culture is the benefits, attitudes, and practices employed around the network and institution around the product distribution and consumption of food. Foodshed is the area where the food is grown and the area in which supplies the population with food. A food desert is an area of the population (generally a desert area) where it is difficult to buy fresh and high-quality food. A food pantry is the single or individual site that stores and distributes food directly to the population in need of food in any given area. A food hut is a centrally located facility or arrangement which stores, produces, and grows food locally regionally and which has distinguished management or structure. Of the many activities, my gardening group has done and still plan to do we engaged in, seeding, transplanting, weeding, harvesting, and composting. Personally, I haven’t done garden work since I was a small boy back in Santa Fe with my grandma. Before this semester began I did not anticipate this experience at all but at the same time, it’s something I’ve wanted to learn how to do again so in a way this class was ultimatly perfect for me. In my future I hope to own a home on a large piece of land, now with the skills, I'm acquiring I’ll be able to plant my own trees and most importantly my own crops to harvest. While there is still a lot of work to be done we are hopeful that our crops can soon be used to give back to the community and to feed ourselves. Cultivating local community gardens is both advantageous to the community and to the farmer as one is able to give back to the community while simultaneously fulfilling personal needs. Living in New Mexico there is a lot of immigration, oftentimes these immigrants take very low paying jobs or instead self employ
themselves. I find this truest when it comes to local farmer's markets. These men and women sacrificed everything to give their families a better future, so not only are you saving the planet when buying local produce, but also putting money into a local growing economy. When it comes to food culture the local benefits and attitude may be crested in selecting the type of food to be grown and workers that are employed. Foodshed is the garden itself that would grow the food so it can feed the local community. The areas or cities affected by weather or bad growing seasons will form a food desert here as the availability would reduce and the cost of goods for food will also increase with distance. Food pantry could be the food storage site near the garden which stores the produces temporarily. The food would be shifted from the food pantry to a more permanent and larger facility called a food hub from which it would be distributed to the population or the local community. The importance of harvesting food locally cannot be understated. The cost on both your wallet and the environment can be enormous to buy produces from let’s say a Walmart instead of growing your own produce or buying it from a local farmers market. The first step to changing the world has to start with each individual person, and doing something as simple as buying your produce locally can go a long way in reducing one's carbon footprint.