Category: sustainable living

October 26, 2015

Salary Negotiation & You, a Love Story

This past week I attended the Start Smart Workshop, a salary negotiation workshop sponsored by the American Association of University Women. The workshop was designed to help combat the gender pay gap and help women learn to negotiate their salary and benefit packages. The lessons and skills that were taught during the workshop were applicable to all people about to enter the working world and begin their first salary-based job. The women running the workshop revealed that women on average make a little over 20% less than men for the same position. This pay disparity is even worse for women of color.

The workshops’ leaders argued that one of the best ways to combat this pay gap was at the salary negotiation phase of accepting a job. This happens after you have received a job offer. The presenters said that women are often more willing to accept an initial salary offering than men. They then went on to describe how you should prepare for a salary negotiation. Their first point to consider, was that by the time you have been offered a job an organization has a vested interest in you. They have vetted out other candidates and selected you as their favorite; because of this you should understand that you often have some leeway when it comes to negotiating a salary and benefits.

Prior to entering a salary negotiation you need to do your homework. The first thing you should do is examine the job description. If you have qualifications beyond those requested for the job; your qualifications give you some room to negotiate your salary. You can use websites like salary.com to research the median salary for people in the same position in your city or region. You also need to prepare a budget, determining how much it will cost you to live in the area where you work and what is the minimum salary you can accept. Once you have done all this you should determine a target salary based on your qualifications, what others with the same position as you earn and your budget. Once this is all prepared you will be ready to negotiate your salary. For instance, you will know if you offered a salary significantly below the minimum salary you set up in your budget you probably can’t accept the job. On the flip side if you are offered your target salary or even a dollar amount above your target salary you can still advocate on your own behalf for a salary increase.

Sometimes organizations will have a set salary cap for employees starting at a certain position or they just don’t have the ability to give you a higher salary. If this is the case you should talk to the company about their benefits package. Companies sometimes have more room to negotiate benefits packages than they do salaries. The takeaway from the workshop was that being prepared is a key element of salary negotiation. Educating workers about salary negotiation is a vital piece to reducing and eventually eliminating the gender pay gap.

–Harlan Belcher, Sustainability Intern, Sustainable Food Policy

Harlan is a junior at the College majoring in Political Science with a concentration in Politics, Philosophy and Law and minoring in Environmental Studies.

October 12, 2015

Jarhead

Everyone knows how notoriously bad for the environment packaging plastic is. In many places the plastic bags we use to transport goods cannot be recycled and even impede the process by getting caught in the machinery that separates solid recyclables. Every time we consume a candy bar, bag of rice, or any other item that is packaged in plastic, we support the processes that resulted in that packaging’s creation and will also end up supporting the ones responsible for its disposal.

A few years ago I decided that I did not want to contribute to the mass manufacture of any plastic packaging or the immense pollution and environmental destruction that inevitably results from its disposal, so I set out to find another method of purchasing items that would allow me to sleep at night without having to think about what I just contributed to.

As a vegan a significant portion of my diet is comprised of unpackaged produce from The Veggie Bin and Farmer’s Market, but there are items that are typically wrapped in packaging that I consume on a regular basis. These include: beans (of which there are 12 kinds I consume regularly), lentils, grains (quinoa, amaranth, rice, and so forth), baking supplies such as flour and sugar, teas, seeds, granolas, specialty items such as chia seeds, nuts (my favorite), etc. The amount of plastic needed to buy all of these items in a traditional supermarket is JARring to say the least.

One day I discovered that all of these items could be bought in bulk from stores such as Whole Foods, Earth Fare, and even the Veggie Bin now! Unfortunately all of the bulk sections I’ve been to have plastic bags to put items in, so I still wasn’t getting away from the packaging! Enough was enough, so I turned and reached for the Jars!

Wide-mouth Bell mason jars to be exact! Over the years I have accumulated a stockpile of somewhere around 50-60 jars. About once every semester I head to Whole Foods and raid their bulk section for all of the items I mentioned above.

The process is simple: bring jars to store, weigh jar at front and write down weight, fill jars up in bulk section making sure to record the item number in each one, and then go to check-out and have them deduct the weight of the jar with each item. At the end you will have tons of food and will have incurred ZERO waste from your purchase. Once you have eaten everything, just wash your jars and repeat; it’s that easy!

There are many benefits to shopping in this manner. There are the obvious ones such as not contributing to the manufacturing of plastics and the environmental destruction they cause, but there are also the not so obvious ones. For instance, using mason jars is immensely satisfying! Aside from that which comes from curbing your impact on the environment, there is also a strong social gratification. No matter where you shop, if you walk in with 50 mason jars you will instantly become a rock star! Every single time I have been to Whole Foods I have been met with a sense of admiration. People say things like, “Oh, that is a really good idea!” or “That is definitely something I should try sometime!” The majority of people don’t realize the effect their consumption has, so it always feels good to introduce them to alternative methods that are less damaging.

I have talked before about how important spreading ideas and awareness is to sustainability. If you find some way to live more sustainably let others know about it! My mason jars are one way that I help to raise awareness about the consequences of plastic consumption and how I avoid it. It’s a matter of reduction, the first of the famous three R’s that is, unfortunately, often the most overlooked. There are ways to reduce your impact in every part of your life, a shining example of which is the Uterine Linings Playbook blog post (which I can’t praise enough) that preceded this one. It’s the little changes, like using mason jars instead of bags, that add up to have an appreciable effect in the long term.

–William Hester, Webpage Designer at the Office of Sustainability

Will is a senior at the College of Charleston majoring in Physics and Mathematics.

September 28, 2015

Uterine linings playbook

Warning: This blog contains some hard truths. If you were unaware before, women have uteruses. Uteruses bleed once a month. Women choose to use tampons, pads, or be like that kick-ass girl who ran a marathon WHILE ON HER PERIOD WITHOUT ANYTHING.

A Menstrual What?

Menstrual cup. Yup, it’s exactly what you think it is; a cup women can insert to hold their menses. And yes, we are really talking about this. Just as one would use a tampon or a pad to absorb the monthly flow, the menstrual cup holds the discharge until you remove and empty the cup. When I finally decided to try the cup, I one hundred and ten percent believed that the cup would not work. I’m all about that zero waste life, but experimenting with my time of the month is a no go. I never thought I would actually prefer the menstrual cup to a tampon or pad. I never thought I would be helping my roommate decide which brand to buy. I definitely never thought I would publically announce via blog my experiences, but here I am. My mom must be so proud.

I definitely am not the menstrual master or adventurous by any means. I refused to use tampons until senior year of high school. But I am stubborn, so when my roommates bet I couldn’t do it, I found myself purchasing a menstrual cup from Amazon. I had plenty of reservations and questions.

Does one size fit all? Yes and no. Think of it as buying one super tampon that you reuse. You don’t buy custom tampons. The only sizes you need to worry about is 1 or 2. Did you have a baby? Use a 2. Are you still being pestered by your mother about having kids? Use a 1. You are not buying a cup for the amount of flow. The menstrual cup companies made these sizes assuming the worst. So you’re always covered.

Yeah, but I’m special. Nope. A common myth people believe is that vagina sizes vary significantly, but, as most myths, that would be false. The only time anything changes is when you have a baby, and for those people there is a size 2.

How do you clean it? This was my concern: germs, infections, and other things ain’t nobody got time for. The cup is completely sanitary. Before using your new cup, wash the cup with soap and water. Then, you place it in boiling water for 5 minutes. Every time you remove the cup, rinse the cup in water. After each menstrual cycle, boil the menstrual cup for 5 minutes then place the cup in a cute tote for ready use the next time you have your period.

How often do you change it? Up to 10 – 12 hours. No need to worry about Toxic Shock Syndrome (something I have an irrational fear of) because the menstrual cup is made from safe medical plastic. The best part is, after you empty and rinse the cup, you put it back! Wake up, clean menstrual cup, reinsert menstrual cup, go. Clean menstrual cup, reinsert menstrual cup, sleep. Eat. Sleep. Menstrual Cup. Here are examples of when you can use the menstrual cup:

Running
Swimming
Back packing
Breathing

Could you leak? Nope. Sometimes you’ll need to change it out more frequently when you have a heavier flow, JUST AS YOU WOULD WITH A TAMPON OR PAD. Except for tossing after use, you clean and reuse.

I have a heavy flow. I feel you. I tend to have a heavier flow, and by heavier I mean my uterus would save more lives than the Red Cross. Why I love this cup so much is because it seals, which means no leaks. This cup actually works better than a tampon or pad. I WORE WHITE PANTS WHILE ON MY PERIOD. The women in the tampon commercials got nothing on me.

How much? $20 – 40.

Yeahhh…no. That’s way out of my budget.

I thought this blog was supposed to be about sustainability? Right. Using the cup is sustainable. Your used feminine care products do not just disappear. They spend the next hundreds of years just chilling at a landfill just like the rest of your trash. Now, think about all the times you have your period. Think of all those pads piling up. What only was a part of your life for 6 hours is now part of the landfill for hundreds of years. One pad isn’t so bad, so you don’t feel guilty tossing one. It’s easy to forget about your trash once you toss it, but think of all the pads that you will toss in your lifetime, in your mother’s lifetime, in your roommate’s lifetime, in your children’s lifetime. Think of that super pack of tampons you just bought; that’s future landfill. Think of all the super pack of tampons that all the people at the College of Charleston bought. Landfill. Think of all the …. you get the point. (Learn more about sustainable cycles here)

I’ll admit, using a menstrual cup is a small step for all the world needs to do to be sustainable. You’re probably thinking what’s the point, but you’re thinking of this all the wrong way. You’re over achieving. Think about the impact in your life, the amount of waste YOU will reduce. As a wise wrinkly man once said, “be the change you want to see in your local landfill.” Or something like that. I’m a science major, not a historian.

This post was written by an intern at the Office of Sustainability