Monday, Feb 1

Tuesday, Feb 2

Wednesday, Feb 3

Thursday, Feb 4

Friday, Feb 5

Be smart about your showers.  Stand next to the shower to wait for it to warm up instead of walking away.  Work to make your shower shorter by one minute each time you shower until you can no longer take a shorter shower.   Shoot for 5 minutes or less.

Use a refillable water bottle.  Don’t give in to the temptation to buy bottled water or get a plastic cup. (And use a reusable mug for coffee, too!)

Shut off the water when brushing your teeth, sudsing up in the shower, and while you suds up your hands.

Try to avoid wasting water.  If you wait for the water to warm up or cool down, catch the water in some sort of container.  Then, use that water to water your plants, clean your dishes, or drink!  You can save that water as drinking water in the fridge instead of running the tap to get cold water.

When washing dishes, fill a pot or large bowl instead of the sink for your soapy water.  Then, only turn the water on when you are rinsing off a dish and shut it off before you go back to washing.

Reducing our water usage is important.  In the world, only 3% of all the water is fresh, and less than 1% is accessible to be used by everyone, from mosquitoes to us.  Additionally, it will be important to learn how to conserve water in the future.  Scientists, politicians, and military strategists have stated that water shortages will lead to conflicts in the not-so-distant future.  Wartburg’s shower heads are all low flow, but even the smallest amount of water saved is a plus as every minute, 2-4 gallons of water come out of the shower heads.  That means a 10 minute shower is going to be using 20-40 gallons of water. 

This tip doesn’t seem like it will save water right away, but it does.  Water is needed to produce the plastic bottle the water is coming in, as well as the paper on the bottle and in transportation to get into your hand.  And that’s if we’re just talking about water and not Coke or Gatorade.  It all adds up.  Not drinking bottled water reduces the amount that is sent to the landfill and the demand to create new bottles.  Additionally, drinking from the tap is not only better for the environment, it’s better for you too!  There are higher safety regulations for tap water than bottled water and plastic bottles eventually leech the chemicals that made them. 

It’s amazing how much water goes down the drain without us realizing it.  Running the average tap for one minute uses 2-4 gallons of water.  That may not seem like a whole lot, but add up every time you wash your hands or your teeth, and you can see that it adds up quickly.  Making this one small adjustment, you could quickly see savings of 20-40 gallons of water a week.  Add in the component on showering and watch the savings go up even higher!

Okay, it’s day four of the training and you’ve noticed some of the ways you can cut back on your personal water usage, but that doesn’t mean you want to jump into a cold shower.  No worries!  This step can let you feel better about letting that water warm up and save you a trip to the bathroom when you need water for your plants.

Reducing the amount of soapy water reduces the amount of water used overall in two ways.  One, it reduces the amount of water needed for washing substantially just by the difference in volume.  Two, when the water gets too dirty (which would happen at roughly the same time with a larger amount of water), it’s less waste water and less to fill up again.  Additionally, if your pot or bowl has food that has crusted on, this serves as an alternative to soaking the dish.

Monday , Feb 8

Tuesday, Feb 9

Wednesday, Feb 10

Thursday, Feb 11

Friday, Feb 12

Today, work to be aware of the amount of light in a room.  If you can turn off half the lights at a time, try it.  You may be surprised how little change there is and how little light you actually need to be productive.  Depending on how bright it is outside, you may be able to shut the lights of entirely.

Be the last one out of the classroom and shut off the lights, especially if you have a night class or a class with a long break after it.

Make a conscious effort to shut lights off in the laundry room, lounge, kitchen, bathroom, shower room, and bedroom when no one is in there. 

Study in a group or around other people instead of in individual rooms.

Change out your light bulbs to more efficient models.  Buy CFLs or LEDs for the lights in your room that you can change—such as desk or reading lamps.

This step has obvious and visible energy savings, but here is something you may have not known: studies time and again have shown that natural light in the workplace (or study-place) actually increases productivity, makes you happier, and makes you healthier.  In schools, more natural light has seen increases in test scores.  Give it a shot, save energy, and reap the personal benefits.

Very rarely do people shut off the lights when they leave a classroom.  As a result, these rooms can often be lit for hours without anyone occupying them, signaling a clear waste of energy.  If you are the last one out of the room, shut the light off.  If not, ask that whoever is the last one out do just that.    Bowling Green State University started shutting lights off in classes on Friday nights and, in one semester, saw $6000 in savings attributed to their “Friday Night Lights” efforts.

Whether you were the last one in there or not, shut the lights off if you see the rooms are no longer being occupied.  As with classrooms, these rooms often do not have people in them and some do not need the light during the day time, yet the lights remain on.  Making a conscious effort to shut off the lights (which costs absolutely nothing) will actually add up to substantial savings in no time.  How’s that for a quick return on your investment?

This action is not one that you hear very often.  But, if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense.  By not sitting in separate rooms, you only have lights on in one room instead of multiple.  Think about it: if you live in the Complex and your floor decides to hold a study hour (or more) in the lounge some afternoon and everyone participates, you are looking at massive reductions—30 less rooms with lights on for one hour.  That adds up!  So study in lounges, the library, or places already lit and you’ll be contributing less to the energy consumed by lighting immediately (as long as you shut the light off in your room first).

As mentioned above, CFLs use more than 75% less energy than incandescent bulbs (your standard light bulb).  LEDs use even less and are the best option for most lighting fixtures, though there are some limitations for dimmers and multiple setting lamps.  Though both CFLs and LEDs are more expensive, the pay back is so fast.  Arlene Schwarzenbach in the Wartburg Bookstore cites a payback of 2 months for switching all of her lights in her home to CFLs.  From there, she was making money off the purchase in savings on her bill and is still saving energy!

Monday, Feb 15

Tuesday, Feb 16

Wednesday, Feb 17

Thursday, Feb 18

Friday, Feb 19

Go around your room and find all your “wall warts”, chargers and electronics left plugged in even though they are not in use, and unplug them.  If you use an electronic today—any electronic—unplug it afterwards.  This includes your TV, computer, printer, gaming station, coffee maker…everything.

If you have a lot of appliances or electronics that you use at the same time and don’t want to deal with the hassle of constantly plugging and unplugging them, buy a power strip that you can shut off.  This will do the trick for you.  For those hard to reach places, get a smart strip.  This power strip recognizes when a device is no longer in use and cuts the energy flowing to it for you while continuing to feed power to the other items you are using.

If you plan on going somewhere in this weather, bring your phone with you and charge it in the car.  Don’t have a car charger?  Go buy one.

If you plan on watching movies or TV shows, watch them with your friends in one common room and unplug the TV’s you are not using. 

Today’s action is simply to reflect on the last three weeks.  How are you doing keeping all of the activities going in every day?  Is it what you expected?  If not, how is it different?  Is it easier?  Harder?  Do you think you will be able to combine everything thus far with one more week’s worth of actions?

As the introduction states, phantom loads can be detrimental to your energy bill and the environment.  By unplugging, you are already making a big difference even if your usage rate doesn’t change.

Sometimes, it just isn’t convenient to unplug and re-plug, unplug and re-plug, every day.  Flicking a switch is not only an easier action, the power strip is often more accessible than that outlet that is behind the desk, just out of arms reach, etc.  You shouldn’t have to get your daily workout simply from unplugging.  If you have a fridge, it makes sense to leave that plugged in for obvious reasons, but you could plug that into a smart strip with other appliances.  It will keep the fridge on and shut off the microwave, for instance.  Though the smart strip is more expensive, it pays back very quickly.

This action kills two birds with one stone: you don’t use extra energy and you don’t have to worry about forgetting to unplug the charger when you are done.  Obviously, it wouldn’t be wise to make a special trip to Cedar Falls just to charge your phone, but take advantage of the trip if you do need to charge your phone.

Similar to the tip from last week, sharing the same space reduces the total energy usage that would have been used if you were all watching in separate rooms.  Additionally, you’ll get to spend more time with the people you care about.

The month is almost over and next week, the theme focuses on a very broad theme: sustainability in general.  Use this time to think of how the last three weeks (or however long you have been participating) have impacted you—if they have or not.  Reflecting will help you understand the point of this whole activity as well as prepare you for next week and the years of sustainability after that.

Monday, Feb 22

Tuesday, Feb 23

Wednesday, Feb 24

Thursday, Feb 25

Friday, Feb 26

Buy Less Stuff
Today, set aside 20 minutes and watch the short film “The Story of Stuff” by going to www.thestoryofstuff.com and clicking on the video in the front.  Then, make a list of three ways you can reduce the amount of stuff you consume.  Later, make a list of at least three items in your living space that you don’t really use or need.  When the opportunity arises, donate them.

Stop and Think
As you go through your day today, pay attention to every single thing you do and think about how your actions impact the environment.  If you can, try to think about these things before you take the action, so that you can try to decide whether or not you need to do it.  For example, stop and think before pressing the handicap button to open the door and don’t do it unless you actually need to.  And actively work to print less—do you really need to print off that email?  This sort of intentionality is what we are striving for this month.

Bring Your Own Dishes
Eat on campus but not in the Mensa?  Bring your own dishes, including the silverware.  Just drink coffee or the daily fountain drink?  Bring your own mug or cup for that.  If you forget to bring it with you, don’t give in to the desire to just buy a bottle or get the plastic cup.  Go to the drinking fountain instead.  If you don’t eat on campus (and even for those of you who do), start bringing your own Tupperware with you to restaurants instead of getting the Styrofoam to-go containers.

Eat Local Foods
From how far away does your food come? Try to buy whole foods from as close as possible.  Most foods have clear labels to let you know where the food came from.  Prioritize foods that come from the Cedar Valley (may seem a little hard, but Hansen’s Dairy from Hudson is a great place to start), then Iowa, then the Midwest, then the US.  If at all possible, avoid purchasing anything else. 

Today, go through your fridge and pantry and look at all your packages to see how far they traveled to get to you.  Then, go through the items in your pantry and look for cans or boxes of things you don’t think you’ll be eating any time soon (or before they expire) and donate those items to someone looking for food now.

Don’t Give Up.
Take today to reflect on how you can continue to pursue a more sustainable lifestyle.  The month may be over, but the training is not.  What other steps have you indentified during this month that you could take?  What do you want more information on that you could look up?  Do you want to continue this sort of step-by-step process?  If so, how?  Write up at least five actions that you can do to continue your training. 

Wendell Berry, one of the more forward thinking agrarians of our day, made the following two statements in his essay “The Whole Horse”: “…the industrial economy’s most marketed commodity is satisfaction, and this commodity, which is repeatedly promised, bought, and paid for, is never delivered…We buy new stuff on the promise of satisfaction because we have forgotten the promised satisfaction for which we bought our old stuff.” The other statement is “When there is no reliable accounting and therefore no competent knowledge of the economic and ecological effects of our lives, we cannot live lives that are economically and ecologically responsible.”  Together, these two statements encourage not only the reduction of the amount that we buy, but a conscious awareness of what we buy as well—an understanding that everything we buy had to come from somewhere and that it ought to last quite a while. 

As you have seen throughout the month, there are many moments throughout the day where we use energy without thinking about it.  This month has already challenged you to think about where you use energy in terms of the lights we leave on and the electronics we leave plugged in, but think about the other areas of your life as well.  Soon, you will see that most of the “shortcuts” we take have long-term effects that aren’t worth the initial lack of effort.

Every year, more than 230 million tons of garbage are thrown into the landfill in the US.  12 percent of that, or 27.6 million tons, is plastic (and that accounts for a 24% recycling rate).  While increasing the amount we recycle is important, it is even more important to use less in the first place.  Given the amount that all of us eat outside of the home (and that primarily plastic utensils and dishes are available on campus), this is one of the fastest ways for us to reduce the amount of plastic we use.  Now, should you use plastics from the dining establishments on campus, it is important to know how to properly recycle them afterwards.  Currently, the Waverly Recycling Center does not accept plastic silverware.  That will have to be trashed (but reuse it as many times as you can first!).  All the food containers will need to be washed out before they are recycled to avoid contamination and the growth of organic matter.  If there is food on the plastic, often that item (and sometimes the whole bag) is tossed.  Don’t take that risk.

On average, food travels at least 25% further to reach your table than it used to.  Brian Halweil, a researcher at the Worldwatch Institute and author of “Home Grown: The Case for Local Food in a Global Market” points out one of the many issues with this reality with the following statement: "We are spending far more energy to get food to the table than the energy we get from eating the food. A head of lettuce grown in the Salinas Valley of California and shipped nearly 3,000 miles to
Washington, D.C., requires about 36 times as much fossil fuel energy in transport as it provides in food energy when it arrives."  Reducing the distance our food travels reduces the amount of oil and gas needed to get it from one location to the other.  Right now, the average food item has traveled at least 1,500-2,500 miles.  If you are eating produce this time of year, think about where it had to come from to get to you in February.  Furthermore, purchasing local foods also supports our local economy.  Every dollar spent on food coming from far away or on non-locally owned businesses leaves only 43 cents in the community.  In comparison, every dollar spent on locally produced food or in locally-owned businesses leaves 68 cents in the community—a whole quarter of a dollar more.

Congratulations!  You’ve made it to the end…of the month.  It’s not over now and there is still a lot of work to be done!  Take this month’s experiences and see how you can continue your training.  The next section down offers some ideas for how you can continue.