Day Six

Hey Everyone!

Today was an average day of school for me, full of classes and basketball practice. Nothing new on the ISP front, just the usual local lunch, and alternative form of transportation and overall lifestyle.

Today I would like to discuss why I am doing my ISP and what affect it has had thus far. I would first like to say that I believe that some of my peers and teachers seem to have the wrong idea about my ISP. Eating locally and using a combination of public transportation and walking to school have not been a major change from my old lifestyle. I am not starving or miserable, I am perfectly content. I am lucky to live in New York City, a place where local food is in abundance (even in February) thanks to the CENYC (Council of the Environment of NYC), and where public transportation is safe, affordable, and trustworthy.

The point of my ISP is to demonstrate to my community that by changing some of our bad habits, we can all together lower our Carbon emissions and help slow down Global Warming. I honestly believe that all it takes are some basic changes to our day to day habits. My goal is to educate our community and to motivate you all to apply some aspects of my project into your daily habits.

My personal environmentally unfriendly pet peeves include:

1) Caffeine addicts who do not bring their own mugs to coffee shops.
Did you know that Stryofoam takes over 1,000 years to decompose and is made out of petroleum, a non-renewable resource, that Dunkin Donuts coffee will last you twenty minutes but the cup will outlive both you and your great grandchildren. The paper alternative to Styrofoam, the cups Starbucks, Yura, and are unfortunately popular in various other coffee shops are also not a "green" option. These cups will last a upwards of one-hundred years, are not recyclable, and are often made out of virgin tree fibers.

2) Those who do not recycle.

3) The excess use of plastic bags.
Again you will use this bag for three minutes to carry your snack from OK market to school, yet it will stay in a landfill for over a hundred years.

4) Wasting water by keeping the facets running.

5) Those who do not turn off the lights after they are the last person to leave the room.

I would love to know if any of you are living any form of a "green" lifestyle (ie taking the stairs instead of the elevator, eating locally, not drinking bottled water, etc.). You can always contact me via email (reginanewyork@aol.com) or by commenting on this blog.

More Tomorrow.

xoxo,
Green Teen