Who am I?
I am a senior at the University of Michigan majoring in biomolecular science. Although I’m not an environmental studies major, environmental sustainability has always been an important value in my life. In high school, I was the President of the Earth Action club and volunteered at annual beach cleanups and San Francisco Green Festival expos. In college, I joined a sustainability research group and have elected environmental projects and courses, including environmental journalism. I always encourage sustainable practices among friends and family too. I am not a vegetarian or vegan, but I do not usually eat red meat, only chicken and seafood. My passion, interest, and related experiences in the environment have inspired me to do this project.
What is the project?
This semester, I am enrolled in my Capstone course for my minor in writing. This course centers around a research-based multimodal project of our choosing. Given my environmental interest, I have chosen to challenge myself, for the first time, to reduce waste by living two weeks without producing any food waste. Ideally, this means that when I shop for food, prepare food, and pack food to take on the road, nothing will go into the trash, only recycling and compost. Even the number of items recycled or composted should be as low as possible.
My goal for this project is to promote sustainable living by reducing food waste, meaning food itself and its packaging, from the perspective of an average everyday lifestyle. As a college student, I can relate to not wanting to spend too much money on different products and not having enough time for everything. When planning meals, I will try to stick to my normal routine and budget as much as possible. I will be blogging every day of this challenge. I will also put all the trash I generate into a container to assess at the end.
Why am I doing this?
According to the USDA, up to 40% of the United States’ generated food supply goes to waste. Reducing this waste of $100 billion worth of food waste could help undernourished populations, conserve land, energy, and natural resources used to produce and distribute food, and lower greenhouse gas emissions from food rotting in landfills. Furthermore, nearly 30% of all generated waste in the United States is attributed to food containers and packaging.
I have chosen food waste as the area I want to work on because I believe it is the most easily changeable and will make a difference on a daily basis. Individual results can also be seen immediately. I hope that this challenge inspires others to want to do the same. It’s about making small changes in steps, not completely going zero waste in a day.
Changes need to be made now, not only to lower climate emissions and preserve natural resources, but also to support the world’s growing population. Farming already uses almost 40% of open land and 70% of fresh water, and we need enough food for everyone today and the 2.5 billion more people projected in the next 30 years.
So, follow me on my journey!
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