Karen's Low Impact Goals, Day 5

My four goals are:
1. I want to use my paper recycle more effectively, and keep old paper to use later.
2. I want to reduce the amount of pages that I print and that I use for homework.
3. I will try to put my computer in sleep mode whenever I am not using it.
4. I will try to work a little in the garden daily, and move towards leftovers or unprocessed foods rather than things from a box for snacks.

This weekend I realized that my first two goals have basically changed into one goal, which is not to use any new paper at all, for writing, at least. It is amazing how much paper I already have, like the other sides of all the pages I have taken notes on, and pages of handouts for Spanish that I printed out and never used. I am trying to use much less paper by reusing paper, so that I take all my math notes on the same page as my math homework, or I only do chemistry work on a page that I have already written on. I realized that I often move to a new page after just writing one bullet on one side of a page, but if I just erase the bullet, I can use the whole page! I now have an established old paper pile which I try to use for homework. I am not really using the paper recycle as I expected, because I never know what paper I should put in it. I've decided that paper should only be recycled if there is text on both sides, or else I can put it in my reusable paper pile. My goal to print less went a little wrong this weekend. I printed out several pages on non-recycleable paper, because my printer got a paper jam from the bent edges of the recycleable paper. In the end, I had to put my bedtime goal over my using recycleable paper goal, and just print the documents out with regular, white, unused paper.


The sleep mode goal with the computer seems to be going fine, although I am worried about how uninvolved I am in it. All I did was set my computer to go to a black screensaver after 5 minutes. I did do one other thing with the computer this weekend, though. On Sunday, I completed almost all my work on my parents computer. Their computer is usually kept on all day, and it is a problem if I turn it off. Therefore, I saved energy by not having two computers on that day (at least for the most part.)

I am very excited about my garden goal. Over the weekend I weeded the herb bed and planted cucumber seeds and marigolds. My mom told me that marigolds keep the pests out of the garden, so I am still working towards sustainability. Today, I planted rosemary in the herb garden, which my mom bought for me. I have also still been trying to eat leftovers for my night time snack. I have dropped the no-processed foods goal entirely, but this weekend I ate leftover pasta and nachos for snacks-all foods that had been made previously. This is a very effective goal, because I think it is stopping me from eating certain unhealthy foods as well as encouraging me to be less of a consumer of things that must be produced and then bought in supermarkets. Overall, the project is successful, and I think that some of the things I am doing now I could develop as long term habits.