For my first blog of the semester, I decided to focus on my personal lifestyle choices. I have always consider myself to fit in with the group of people who never really took the time to consider how their actions would affect the things around them. I was never one to have a second thought about how I was disposing of things or even how I was using different things. After spending some time in the Intro to Environmental and Sustainability Studies, I realized that my actions play a big part in keeping the Earth healthy and alive.

I believe on of the biggest issues I have is recycling. I knew that it was important, but I didn’t know just how important it was. I believe if I could recycle more, I would contribute more towards protecting the Earth and less towards damaging it. Recycling greatly affects nature, including things we never really think about on the daily basis. There is a great amount of plastic and debris in the oceans, which is harming and killing marine life and because I don’t recycle, I am apart of that. I have recently been recycling more and more. I do want to change because I know how much it can benefit the Earth and it makes me feel better about the decisions I make.

I also think another one of my biggest problems is reusing material. I have a bad habit of just throwing things away once I am done with it. This isn’t intentionally, it’s almost like second nature to just toss my empty cans in the trash instead of turning them into a pencil holder or maybe even a vase for fake flowers. Who knows, the ideas are endless with some objects. I am not that creative, so it’s hard to figure out new inventions for my used objects. It’s easier for me to just throw them away. The more I reuse things, the less trash there will be, which will then lead to a much cleaner Earth! I have not yet tried to reuse anything, the most I’ve done is keep my plastic shopping bags from stores like Walmart and I use them as trash bags but then I eventually end up throwing them away which isn’t helping the problem.

The only challenges I face when it comes to trying to improve these things are forgetting because I am so used to doing the wrong thing and also finding ways to reuse certain items. When I recycle, I do feel good about myself because I’m making improvement. I went from not caring about recycling because I wasn’t educated that much about it, to recycling every time I am out and about. It’s not the best, but I’m working on it and you have to start somewhere. As far as reusing material, I have not started yet but I will eventually. I definitely believe I will stick to recycling but reusing, I’m not entirely sure. To others I would say, be the change. It will be a little difficult at first but once you get used to it, you will feel pretty good. At the end of the day just think of how many tiny lives you could save by properly disposing of your trash. It’s definitely worth it!