Week 1 Reflection

 Going into our project, we wanted to make an impact on the earth by picking up a lot of trash. We quickly realized that there are many more ways than just picking up trash that can impact the earth over the two weeks. We decided we will try to live the most sustainable lives we could, with an emphasis on leaving as little trash as possible. While we were doing this, we wanted to find ways to educate people on how they can also be sustainable. We also noticed quickly that one of the reasons we found so much trash, had to do with the fact that there is not a very easy way for people to throw their stuff away. We also noticed that tighter, smaller communities tended to keep smaller ponds or community spaces more clean.

First, we went to Lowes to get all of our gear. Something that was helpful for us was our trash grabbers. Then, the places we picked up trash were Kezar Lake, Lake Winnipesaukee, Elbow Pond, Putney Pond, and the beach in Portsmouth. All of these spaces had a lack of trash cans. If there were any, they were hard to see. This is what prompted us to create maps, at each of the places we go, and map out where the smartest places to put trash cans were. We wanted to make these places where people would have the most trash, but places where people could easily throw their trash away. Another thing that was super helpful for us was our trip to Concord. Here, we walked around to find stores with sustainable options for people to reduce waste. We found one store in particular that was completely sustainable, called Boneify. This store was filled with reusable everyday items that reduce waste.  One thing that stood out was a soap refill station, where you bring your old containers and fill them with soap so there is less plastic! We plan to interview the people here and talk to them more about sustainability later in the week.

As we have gone throughout our days, we have been keeping our instagram super updated with pictures, and reels of us getting trash (@trashnomopew). We wanted to do this as one step to informing the public on how they can be sustainable too. We have been making lunches at home every day, and traveling around with a cooler and tupperware to reduce waste ourselves. Of course we are also using reusable water bottles. We have started creating flyers, as another way to educate the public about waste. We still need to make them better, and do a little more research, but this is part of our plan to educate people. In the coming days, we plan to take a trip to the dump, sort our trash, talk to a few people about trash waste in other communities around the U.S. and ultimately pick up so much trash. This project definitely impacted my life and will change the way I throw things away long after the project ends!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 8: Highland Lake

 We arrived at Highland lake at 10 and walked around the parking lot and down both roads and found quite a few glass bottles. Once it got close to 11, we realized it was going to rain, so we headed back to Proctor to get a workout in while we waited out the rain. Around 12 we went back to the lake, and walked on both the rail trail and the road ultimately to end up on the little beach. We cleaned up a good amount of trash on the actual beach, and in the woods around it. We walked all along the waterline around the lake, but the water was generally pretty clean. We mostly found old plastic, cans and glass bottles. Something we have noticed is the amount of recycling. Once we sort our trash, I think that we will find a good portion of recycling which is surprising to me because I thought there would be a lot more garbage. We did not see any trash cans at Highland Lake, and we will definitely need to make a map with trash cans on it for this lake. Daily hours: 4 Total hours: 35
Read more

Day 10: Kersarge Hike

 This morning we woke up early and got ready for our hike. We went to hike mount kersarge. We brought our grip and grabbers and a trash bag so we could clean up the trail. To our suprise, there was barely any trash. There was one trash can at the bottom of the trail. When we got to the top, we hiked to the top of the fire tower. Up here, we met a friend named Ron and he talked to us for over an hour about the mountian and his experiences with the earth and outdoors. After talking about his background, we asked Ron about global warming, and he explained that due to global warming there has been a big increase in forest fires around New Hampshire. This will add a lot to the awareness we will spread about living a sustainable life to better our earth. We also talked to him about the cleanliness of the mountian. He explained to us that it’s not as much littering, as it is people carelessly putting down a water bottle for example and it blowing down. He told us that the wind is why we norma
Read more

Day 9: Grind time

 Today we woke up ready to grind. In order to be focused all day, we decided to start our morning with a sustainable breakfast. We made eggs and composted the egg shells and egg cartons from Catherine’s neighbor. After this we watched the Netflix documentary “Our Earth.” This documentary talked about the ways we can save the ocean before it’s too late. It talked about things such as greenhouse gas admissions made from man made products. It emphasized the importance that living a sustainable life will reflect on the world. Then, We spent a lot of time on our flyers. We made 3 flyers, about composting, sustainability, and recycling, that we will hang up later in the week around the community. Our interview with my aunt was very helpful to put together the composting flyer. We wanted to make these to teach the community simple things they can do to save the earth. We got a lot done today and it was helpful to be able to put all the things we have learned onto paper. Daily hours: 6 Total h
Read more