Because We Care… *

My first goal to reach of this last week is to reduce our garbage amout by creating our own completely organic kitchen garden. For this, we used the water we started collecting last week and the compost we created on week 1 and we only had to buy organic seeds and young plants. We chose eggplants and lettuce because we needed to find vegetables that can be planted in March, but we intend to extend the kitchen garden with other vegetables as soon as possible. We have always had the idea of beginning our own kitchen garden, so,once again, the ‘No impact project’ turned out to be the perfect occasion to throw ourselves in this adventure.

The second goal we would like to achieve this week is to cut down on our carbon dioxide rejections to protect the environment and decrease the greenhouse effect. We decided to do something on our small scale and try to leave the cars at home as much as possible. I went to school by bike 3 days on 5 because, for different reasons, I could not do it the 2 left days. My parents took action as well to reach this goal : they only used their car to go to work, and walked or cycled the rest of the time, which is a quite big change in their habits.

I really enjoyed this last week as a no impact girl and so did my family. Even if the kitchen garden has still not given many results, it feels nice knowing that, if everything works well, we’ll  soon be able to taste vegetables of our own production. Plus, we realised it was pretty easy to create it, and as we now have our own  free water and fertilizer, it is really cheap and economical.

Going to school by bike turned out to be a very positive experiment : I didn’t have to wake up any earlier, contrary to what I thought, because it only takes 30 minutes to go to school and it was a lot of fun cycling to school with the others ‘no impact boys and girls’.

Generally speaking, this experiment has rather been positive. I am suprised to see we did fulfill our engagements, and that my family took it seriously and got involved in my project. We are now much more aware of what we consume every day and how huge it is. I think it also made us realise how easy it could be to consume less and, above all, to consume better. We are more careful in our usual moves : we don’t forget anymore to turn off the tap while brushing teeth or switch off the lights when we go out of a room and, even if it was sometimes a bit bothering to change our comfortable habits, we can’t say we saw many downsides.

I don’t think we will keep the 5-minute limit for showers, but we’ll certainly have very fewer baths than we used to and I guess we won’t keep following the half an hour rule for TV either, but I’m sure we will spend more nights with the TV off, because it was very pleasent to talk or spend simple time quietly together. We are determined to maintain the rainwater harvesting system, the compost and our kitchen garden, that we will even make bigger. I also am sure that I will ride my bike to school everytime the weather allows it. We intend to buy more and more organic products and to take better care of our environment by other simple actions.

To conclude with this 4-week adventure, I would say that, whether you feel or not concerned about the preservation of the environment or not, we all are involved and, even if you are a bit reluctant to change your comfortable habits, it is worth trying. So take it as a challenge and call family and friends to experiment the ‘No impact Project’ and don’t forget that the important is to thrust!

For this week my 1st goal, is to try eating and consuming better by choosing organic products. Food from organic productions can now be found very easily in supermarkets, or in specialized shops. That’s why, I and my “no impact” friends decided to experience a completely organicly made meal. We bought biological pastas and other products to cook this dinner by ourselves. We decided to test biological food because we all had already tried some, but never actually eaten a whole biological meal. Plus, we wanted to know if it was as expensive as it is known to be and of course, if it was tasty and really different from what we are used to.

The second goal we would like to reach is, again, to preserve water because water overconsumption is a topic that appears of primary importance to us. Watering a kitchen garden consumes a lot. But we thought that, if we wanted to make our kitchen garden entirely ecological, we could definitely not waste liters of clean and fresh water and it seemed quite obvious to use rainwater. For this, we needed to buy a storm-water drain that we connected to the gutter. We chose rainwater harvesting system because we had always wanted to have one but actually never found the good time, so this experiment turned out to be the perfect occasion.

What I found pretty nice was eating a completely organic meal cause we had a very good time. We had to buy a few different products, such as pastas that we found for a reasonable price which was not so much higher than pastas from “normal” production and, to my mind, the taste wasn’t different.

Assembling the rainwater harvesting  system was a bit difficult because we had to connect it to the gutters, and to find the right place to put it. Nervertheless, we did achieve to set it up and it actually was easier than what we expected.

Finally, the hard part has rather been keeping on following the rules we imposed ourselves last week..We still have very quick showers and it still is complicated not to exceed the limit. We haven’t really missed TV up to now, even if I can’t say I am not tempted to watch my favorite shows sometimes.

This second week has also been rewarding and interesting. What has surprised me again is that it is not as difficult as we thought it to be to live in a more respectful way. We’ve just made a few efforts but we do feel it can change things because it is not only about us, but also all the people around us that are influenced by this example and consider the idea of doing the same. It makes me believe that, some day “being green” is not going to be just a widespread trend, but a reality. Moreover, we’re getting used to our new resolutions, then we can imagine that the challenge we gave ourselves may turn out to be a long-range project ?

The first goal my family and I would like to reach is reducing our consumption of water. First, we timed how long we usually took to have showers, we found about 20 minutes, which is quite long, then we decided to impose a five-minute limit per person and per day for showers and to give having baths up. We placed a clock in the bathroom to check the time. We chose this aim because we thought preserving our environment began by preserving its resources, and the most important  and vital of all : water. Plus, we realised living with 150 liters of water a day was huge, and thought it shouldn’t be that hard to reduce this figure.

The second goal  we challenged ourselves to attain  was reducing our energy consumption. That’s why we decided to limit radically our habits, and only watch TV half an hour a day ( for the 8 o’clock news). And this change also had consequences on our family day-to-day life, because it offered new opportunities to spend time together.

 The third goal we tried to accomplish for our first week as a ‘no impact’ family was reducing our garbage. We started creating our own compost so we can spread it on the entirely organic kitchen garden we’ll start on week 3. Compost seemed to us a good idea, because it is a great way to reduce our house waste amount, besides we need it for the kitchen garden.

Up to now, the experiment has been quite easy, even if those changes in our habits haven’t always been very comfortable. To my mind ( and probably to my sisters’ too) the hardest part is the limit for showers because getting our long hair clean in 5 minutes is a real challenge !  And if the no-baths rule has been respected by everyone, we may have taken a few more minutes for showers than what was planned first. But there is also a positive part : the last one having a shower in the morning hasn’t got cold water !

I am surprised to see that suppressing TV of our habits has not been very hard and it even seemed quite natural to spend evenings without it, talking or reading. Contrary to what I expected, I don’t miss it at all and I appreciate this experiment.

The creation of our compost didn’t give us a lot of trouble, we bought a book about the subject that guides us so we don’t have real obstacles to overcome for this part of the experiment.

To conclude with this first week, I would say that the experiment seems to us easier than we thought it would, even if there are a few changes in our usual comfort we have to deal with. We  are satisfied of our new, if not impact free, at least impact less new habits. We feel that we are doing something that reflects better with our deep convictions, and this is a very pleasant feeling.

I am sure of one thing : I am not a “no impact girl”. I have sometimes baths, I ask my parents to drive me to school when I’m too lazy to ride my bike, I admit I can forget to switch off the lights and  buying food in packaging has never really bothered me up to now. But I do care about the planet and I believe I can do much better.

My family also cares about the environment, even if we use our car and produce a certain amount of garbage every year. My mum buys hardly exclusively bio beauty products and prefers fruits and vegetables from ecological agriculture. My sister is gluten intolerant so we have to buy groceries in bio coops or in the biological department of supermarkets. Generally speaking, I think we try to act in our own way but it’s certainly not enough.

My school takes a few actions in the environment issue. In every room, there are bins for waste selection, which is a good thing in theory, but I don’t think everybody puts it in practice. There are also things to change at school: for instance, the self gives hundreds of plastic cups out every day which corresponds to a huge amount of garbage that could be avoided every year.

My city also proposes waste selection and I think most people respect it for real. My town is located in the countryside, and fortunately the little cultivators spread organic fertilizer on the fields. It is pretty off-centered and too far away from Lille to go downtown easily by bike or on foot, and leave cars at home.We only have one bus every hour joining the subway, which is to my mind not enough to make people use more common transportation.

My country is quite concerned about the problem of pollution.We have a Ministry of ecology and in 2007,  the ” Grenelle of Environment” has been introduced. The “Be Green” trend has become ubiquitous and we can see more and more spots in favour of a more respectful way of life.  In my opinion, the government could and should take better action in the matter of preservation of the Earth and introduce real laws that prevent from wasting too much.

From my point of view, the ‘No Impact Project’ is a three-week challenge that me and my family can give ourselves to reduce our garbage, our waste of energy and water and, on a small scale, our impact on the environment. According to me, it’s an adventure everybody should try because enventually, we will certainly have to choose a no impact way of life.

This experiment is to me a very exciting project that I’m pretty impatient to start. It’s probably going to be instructive too and brings us a lot. I and my family are going to experience more careful habits and perhaps, keep our new habits for long ?

Week  1 - Our first goal is to reduce our consumption of water by imposing a limit of 5 minutes per person and per day for showers and, of course,no baths at all.
- To reduce our consumption of energy, we will only watch the news from 8:00 to 8:30 and find ways to spend evenings without TV.
- Finally, we will try to reduce our garbage and waste amount by creating our own compost, that we will spread on the kitchen garden.

Week 2 - First, we will organise several meals, exclusively made of food from organic production with the other ‘No Impact girls and boys’ of the class.
- Secondly, we will try to reduce our water consumption by setting up a rainwater harvesting system to water the kitchen garden.

Week 3 - With the compost and the rainwater, we can start our completely organic kitchen garden!
- And to reduce the carbon dioxyde rejection in the atmosphere I’ll go to school by bike everyday and my parents won’t use their cars for short distances.

I think the next three weeks won’t be very easy but I believe we will find many good aspects in our new habits. Even if I’m a bit worried we may not be able to respect them, I rely on my family to help me go through this three-week adventure. I really hope this more respectful way to live will bring us a lot and I can’t wait to begin !