1. Change your mindset
The first thing you need to know about sustainability is that every little thing matters. Every small act of recycling or using a hydro works. Getting into the mindset is just acknowledging how much plastic or waste your using. I did this when I first started and turns out I used to use about 4 plastic straws a day. That’s 28 a week. That’s not even counting the GCBC or Starbucks runs. Or the plastic from the cups. As I started to get in the mindset I began to see how I carelessly used single use plastic.
2. Get a reusable water bottle
Nowadays, it is so easy to get a reusable water bottle. Amazon, Starbucks, Target, REI (Recreational Equipment Inc.), Ross, Walmart, and the Lopes store all sell reusable bottles. Some bottles can run to about $50 (we are talking about the hydros that every GCU student seems to have). Luckily, I received mine at an REI store in Oregon, as they were having a 50% off sale. But you don’t have to purchase these expensive water bottles – any brand works. Luckily, GCU has refillable water bottle fountains. I’m from California, so I didn’t know those even existed until I came here. Having a reusable water bottle truly helps because when I was a freshman, my roommates and I used to go through a whole case of water in one week. That’s A LOT of waste. We started switching to reusable water bottles and Brita filters and ended up saving a whole lot of money in the process.
https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/gallery/best-reusable-water-bottles
3. Get reusable straws
Since the whole turtle video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wH878t78bw), I’ve started to refuse straws at restaurants. With family, I would also pressure them into refusing them as well. It truly became amazing to see after a summer of refusing straws and pressuring my family, they caved and refused to use them as well. So, to my surprise, when I bought a bundle of reusable straws from Amazon, my family began fighting one another for a straw. Using reusable straws allows me to feel like I’m making a difference. It’s a small difference, but with my single impact, I got five other people to do it, and maybe they will pass it on and so forth. Also, maybe they’ll purchase the silicone ones, because there was an incident where a stainless steel straw impaled a woman to death (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/11/world/europe/metal-straws-death.html).
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07S88VFM9/ref=cm_sw_r_pi_dp_U_x_h6MDDbYXK0JGA
4. Bring your own bags
Honestly this task really surprised me. California banned plastic bags; they now sell them for ten cents apiece. I always forgot my bags in the car or at the house this past summer, so I always had to buy the nice, reusable ones. So now that I’m back in Arizona and have a whole box full of reusable bags, shopping is so much easier. Honestly! I remember last year; my roommates purchased a wagon to help carry the many grocery bags as four of us couldn’t carry them all. Using the reusable bags, I carried all my groceries in one trip. It was amazing. The only downside is that I have no more plastic bags for my trash cans.
https://doeadeerdesign.com/collections/other-products-2/products/good-food-good-mood-tote-bag
All in all, if you were thinking about helping sustain the envoronment, or even just wanting to make a small difference, I encourage you to try one of these steps. I promise that you’ll feel a million times better.