Reflections

Part 1: Home

While this part of the project was a team effort, I was pretty happy with the results. My family was able to reduce it's weekly garbage by 75% in just 9 weeks. Some parts were definitely easier to change than others. For example it was easy to put all food waste into a separate bin but it wasn't so easy to buy food that came with eco friendly packing or package free. Most of the work also fell on to my mom because she is the one that buys the majorities of our household items. I think the biggest aspect that helped us to reduce waste was actually tallying the items we disposed of. By being aware and knowing that you'd have to count it made us not want to use it. Often times we were able to find easy solutions that helped eliminate waste little by little. I really enjoyed this part of the project because it was an actual change to my lifestyle and it forced me to evaluate it. I think a lot of people say their activists for or support the idea of living a more eco friendly life but not many make the changes they are pushing for. Even now, months after I stopped recording my garbage, I still find myself in the habit of asking myself " is there another way that doesn't involve throwing --- out?". In just 9 weeks I was able to change my behavior and make a difference.

Part 2: Community

This part of the project really expanded my knowledge on municipalities. I really enjoyed talking to people like Russ Arnold, who were willing to take a second and share their thoughts on this global issue. I learned so much just from contacting people and companies. This part also allowed me to look at the problem on the next level. First I focused on homes and then I moved to towns. Trying to piece together how I could influence people to make the change I did was difficult. Most people are really motivated by money and that's the problem towns face. No one wants to pay more for trash, but they don't realize that if trash is reduced their prices will go up anyways because there is limited landfill space left. It was also interesting to see how I could take ideas from one city and see a way for Farmington to try it. I think that most people think it takes a lot of effort to make a difference but it really doesn't require a whole lot of work. This part of the project allowed me to see how uninformed people are, myself included. It also showed me that if you have the slightest interest in something there's always something more to learn.

part 3: Presentation to Town

This was the most important part of my project in my opinion. In the beginning of the project I didn't think I'd be able to share this information I found with anyone, however after attending the March 2019 Green Efforts Committee meeting I realized that there was an audience that would listen. Presenting to this group was different than any other presentation I've done because they were people who knew about the issue and have been working on it themselves. Being able to write a blog post for the town was also important because that will be available to the public and could potentially change someone's lifestyle.

Town Hall Waste Reduction Presentation

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