Hi fellow Steemians / Natural Medicine enthusiasts & now EcoTrain passengers!
My entry to the latest contest for the @naturalmedicine contest found at this Steempeak link is as follows!
In the modern, western culture of consumption and waste, it's difficult to find your way sometimes when we try to detach ourselves from that vicious cycle. It starts with small changes to your daily habits that can then compound and become stronger and you gain confidence to do more. Every little bit helps!
One of the most common places adults spend the majority of their lives is (unfortunately) at work. This can also be one of the worst places to produce waste since lots of work places are designed to just use materials and toss it in the trash when you're done and keep going. This is perhaps one of the worst offenders in America in my opinion, since there are so many office jobs. I've made several changes over the years that have improved my waste footprint and my health overall.
Coffee drinking: the caffeinated beverage has become so mainstream nowadays that everyone in the world perhaps knows of it and why people drink it. This beverage produces a lot of waste though! I see lots of people who walk around with a plastic (polyethylene) lined cup. Being plastic, there are a whole list of negative effects of those on both our health and the planet.
Personally, I've changed my beverage drinking habits. I never drank coffee up until about 2 years ago so it didn't really apply to me however I have since started enjoying a small cup every morning during the work week. A lot of people have moved over to using the Keurig quick brew coffee makers which I have done. I didn't like the K-cup waste that happened after you were done so I researched online and found that, as expected, companies make reusable K-cup's which I now use.
These are plastic lined and I will be changing them out for a nice mostly stainless steel one but only when these break down and are unusable. I have one left that's brand new so perhaps it will be a while before it too breaks, but since it's part of the consumption problem we have, I won't be just tossing it to upgrade it.
Since I use the reusable ones, I also have lots of compost that I then produce; I have a container on my desk that I collect all of the used coffee grounds and bring it home to sprinkle in various areas. Have to keep the reusable cycle going!
I've also changed the coffee mug I use at work. I always wanted to use a reusable mug so I don't have waste associated with my routine but I didn't realize I was using a potentially poisonous container! There are several reports about it such as this one but ceramic mugs are typically treated with lead containing paint, which when scratched can leak lead into your beverage. I promptly switched that out for a completely glass container which is better for me as well as the environment. I still have the ceramic mug as it's what I use to collect the coffee grounds before dumping them into a larger container. I will eventually figure out a way to properly dispose of the ceramic mug.
Water drinking: Staying hydrated is incredibly important but there is a lot of waste associated with it in our modern society of poisoned tap water and bottled clean water. Lots of people use the convenient plastic bottles because they come with a fun little straw or because they don't break if you drop them or for various other reasons. What the unfortunate reality with them is they wear out often and get thrown away, never mind the chemical leeching. Personally I use a nice silicone-wrapped glass bottle; it's durable and glass is a superior material to be constantly using for drinking and eating.
Food consumption: I work with a lot of people who just go to the cafeteria or to the store to buy food for their lunches during the day. This leads to massive amounts of waste and consumption; the cafeteria uses mainly styrofoam containers and we know how awful those are for the environment. The deliveries and stores also use disposable, often plastic or some other unfortunate material.
We, for several reasons, have been in the habit of preparing and bringing our own food to work. It's healthier for sure but also much better for the environment; we don't throw the container away each time we use it and we know what goes into our food and can control that better.
Along the same line, we've also recycled and gotten rid of 90% of our plastic containers in exchange for glass containers to store and consume our foods. The glass containers keep the food fresher we've found, which produces less waste when the food lasts longer in the fridge, and it tastes far better! If you've made the switch from plastic to glass, you may notice that there is subtle but distinct plastic taste to certain food that gets stored in plastic.
What are you doing?
This was my personal take on the latest challenge by @naturalmedicine highlighted above. I could have elaborated on more things we've done at home but I wanted to keep it concise to the workplace, where so many of us spend so much time in our lives, to show them that there are simple changes we can make to be better for both our health as well as the health of the planet.
Do you do something similar to what I do at work? Do you do something different? I would love to know in the comments!
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