Mark Abell's No Impact Project, Day Seven

Beavan's "No Impact Man" is about changing individual behavior to more ecologically sustainable ways of living. However, structural or institutional change is necessary for this to occur, at times. For instance, on my family's ski-trip, my parents loaded up the car-a rented Kia-with bottled water and Coca Cola, all of which came in plastic bottles. Then when we turned the car in at the Hertz on SW 4th, no recycling bins were available. Ideally, my parents would have abstained from purchasing plastic bottles. For the sake of diplomacy though, I kept my mouth shut on this matter. Consequently, when you are traveling with many bags such as my parents were, it is not always possible to bring items that should be recycled, such as bottles, along with you. Thus, with a guilty conscience, I threw two or three plastic bottles in the trash, where they will not biodegrade and will not be made into new bottles or integrated into other new products. I really do wish the Hertz parking garage had recycling bins! I did do my best but it is difficult when you are loaded down with a lot of bags!

Day Six Of Mark Abell's No Impact Project

• Walked to my allergy appointment (SW 10th near the Pearl)
• went to Philosophy lecture
• walked to the post office, bought stamps
• dropped prescription off at Safeway
• took out recycling and trash. It was about a 1:1 ratio. Still haven't phased out Trader Joes' heavily packaged turkey.
• mailed some letters
• took the streetcar to SW 4th and Pine
• loaded up a Kia Optima that my parents rented to go skiing. The vehicle should get 22 city/32 highway[1] However, taking the Greasebus out skiing is preferable[2].
• went to Ski Bowl[3] Went down about five runs on my snowboard.
• unpacked our car, brought all of our ski equipment back into our room.
• sat in a hot-tub with my mom, sister, and some people that were staying in our hotel.
• drank some Fat Tire Beer[4]. I suppose a more local Portland beer such as a Widmer[5] would be preferable but the manufacturer of F.T.B., New Belgium is a very progressive company.
  
• did not generate a lot of trash today. However, my 12 inch submarine sandwich from Subway came with a wax wrapper, a plastic bag which I think is a bit excessive. I usually avoid Subway.
  

Evaluation:
[1]http://autos.yahoo.com/2010_kia_optima/
[2]http://www.greasebus.com/
[3]http://www.skibowl.com/
[4]http://www.newbelgium.com/
[5]http://www.widmer.com/age_gate.aspx?redir=http://www.widmer.com/default.aspx

Day Five Of Mark Abell's No Impact Project

• attended Architecture 101: Introduction To Environmental Design, Sociology 320: Globalization, and Dr. Brower's Environmental Activism class
• walked to Embassy Suites (SW 4th & Pine) to meet my parents
• walked to a Thai restaurant, where we all had dinner
• took the Maxx to the Blazer's stadium
• the game was enjoyable. However, inside of the stadium, I realized how far outside of the mainstream I have become. For instance, I disagree with the mission and ethics of almost every sponsor: Nike-sweatshops, McDonalds-unhealthy and toxic food, Wells Fargo bank[1] was among the eight major US banks to receive bailout funds, Subway: the food is really not very fresh. Instead, we need to support local-yocal sandwich shops. Also Ford Motor Co. and Toyota-we need to get past the car paradigm, we need walkable/bikable cities with excellent mass transportation.
  

[1]http://bailout.propublica.org/entities/518-wells-fargo

Day Four Of Mark Abell's No Impact Project

Positives:

• biked twenty miles on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. 60 miles under my belt for the weekend.
• I have not driven or been a passenger in a car this week.
• I have walked, biked, used the Maxx or street-car to all of my destinations this week.
  

Negatives:

• I fell off the locavore wagon. I realized: I am not yet committed enough to eat only local food primarily because it is winter and I do not particularly like root vegetables, which are the main local food stuff available at this time of the year. Also, there is a time commitment associated with the locavore movement. Currently, I am taking four classes or 16 credits at PSU and the my primary priority is to do as well as I possibly can with midterms, finals, and papers, all of which take up a lot of my time. I probably am making excuses. I believe the journey towards developing a more ecologically sustainable lifestyle is a difficult one not because we have insufficient knowledge or data about what is currently happening but because it is difficult to give up our ecologically destructive habits which we cling to stubbornly.
  

Day Three of Mark Abell's No Impact Project

The no impact project is starting to get frustrating. Firstly, to be truly sustainable, our economic activity would need to be a lot more local. That means grocery stores such as Safeway are unacceptable. Even Whole Foods is part of the problem! Although food at the Northwest location of Whole Foods in Portland's Pearl district is mostly organic, it is trucked in from California and Mexico which means that Whole Foods' food incorporates a lot of food miles. My arugula from California has to go, my quinoa from Bolivia has to go, my Living Harvest hemp protein from Canada has to go, etc.

The Good:

• I did go to the Farmer's Market on SE Hawthorne. I picked up: 2lbs of honey. The operation is headquartered at 16032 NW McNamee Rd. Also, bought gala apples grown in Oregon which were certified by Food Alliance[1].
• did not use mechanized transportation today (no streetcar, no Maxx)
  
• used the elevator much less frequently today than usual
• walked past Powell's and Macy's multiple times
  

The Bad:

• went to Pita Pit[2] which is a nation-wide chain. Unacceptable.

[1]http://foodalliance.org/
[2]http://www.pitapitusa.com/main.php?page=2

Day Two Of Mark Abell's No Impact Project

• Had an apple (from Washington) for breakfast, purchased from Whole Foods.
• had a chocolate brownie and a bagel from Food For Thought[1] for breakfast
• took a midterm: Philosophy: Environmental Ethics
  
• ate a lot of vanilla yogurt mixed with granola
• biked over twenty miles with a new-found friend to Reed College
  

Negatives:

• was given two napkins: one for the chocolate brownie, one for the bagel
• returned a broken blender to Macy's: got a gift-card instead of a monetary refund, thus I will be able to buy sweat-shop produced clothes with the refund for my low quality blender.

Philosophical insights: Corporate capitalism is unsustainable. Also, how did we come to this stage of corporate capitalism? My grandmother's washer machine was a Maytag, and that lasted 35-40 years. Why can't I buy a washer machine today that lasts for thirty years or more? Didn't our grandparents live in a capitalist era? In order for change to occur, will a deeper recession or depression change our habits in America?

[1]http://web.pdx.edu/~salp/salp_saga/group_profile.php?id=47

Day One Of Mark Abell's No Impact Project

Trash generated:
5 Clif Bar wrappers, 1 Styrofoam plate from a fund-raiser on campus, Styrofoam bottom from Trader Joes' turkey, saran wrap from Trader Joes' Turkey.

Items To Phase Out: Clif Bars, Trader Joes' packaged meats.

The moderate:
bought No Impact Man: The Adventures Of A Guilty Liberal Who Attempts To Save The Planet And The Discoveries He Makes About Himself And Our Way Of Life In The Process @ Powell's. The good: supports the local economy, supports the mission of the author who signed the book. The bad: could have taken the book out from the library and saved $25, bought the book new when used would be preferable, book is only $9.95 used on Amazon [1].

The good:

• took the streetcar to Whole Foods, later back to PSU, and later to Powell's. Walked to NW 21st to go to a cafe to study for a midterm then walked the full way back to SW 10th, where my apartment is.

• bought Kombucha from Townshend's Tea Company[2], a company out of Eugene, which for all practical purposes we will say is local. other pros: allergy symptoms improved after drinking the beverage, kept the bottle to drink water out of (reuse) cons: spent $4 on one bottle.

[1]http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0374222886/ref=sr_1_olp_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265966379&sr=1-1&condition=used

[2]http://www.townshendstea.com/our-story

Resources:
http://noimpactproject.org/

http://noimpactman.typepad.com/