Investigate the options and end
fate of your household’s e-waste.
Discuss where and how you will dispose of this waste and your future
electronics purchase plans in relation to the waste they will one day become.
Upon investigation I discovered that my households e-waste collection, as I like to call it, consists of multiple out of use cell phones per person (5 individuals residing in the same residence), broken head phones and a broken wireless keyboard and mouse set. As a result of collecting all of my households e-waste to see just how much junk we had around the house I took it upon myself to find businesses that support e-waste collection. Since I am going home for the holidays in a short time I looked for a business within my home town that would take the waste. I discovered that the MTS store in my home town, as well as The Source and other electronic dealers collect and ship the items to be recycled. Over the holidays I will be properly disposing of all of these items. I discussed with my room mates our class lesson on recycling electronics and where these things end up and the difficulty it takes to break them down. We discussed as a household that we would do our research and make wiser purchases in the future, meaning that we will buy products that last as opposed to buying cheap products that last only a month long. (My one room mate has been notorious this year for going through sets of cheap headphones). Two of my room mates are also very computer savy and have actually built their desk top computers from scratch by ordering individual parts. One of them was looking in to getting a new computer, but instead has decided to just replace the individual part necessary to alleviate the problem. We are currently looking into where we can drop computer parts off for e-waste recycling in hopes that it will not end up in the landfill.
What am I doing to promote sustainability and happiness in my life? What would I like to do? What do I pledge to do?
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| Some plants from my indoor garden. All of my plants have been planted in second use containers. ie. old jars, a broken bowl that was no longer going to be used and a clay pot that was otherwise going to be thrown away. |
Lately I have been taking the steps towards limiting my consumerism by doing less shopping all together. I am tired of being controlled by the economy and marketing campaigns for "stuff" we simply don't need. We buy things just to fill up our house, but what are the true uses of these items? Nothing. To look pretty. So instead of investing in "stuff", over the past year I have been making an indoor garden to decorate our house. All of our furniture has come from past users, my parents and siblings, and we have not purchased any new furniture as a result. I really enjoy this way of living because it takes such a large burden off of your shoulders. I am no longer easily swayed by marketing campaigns and always assess the durability and longevity of an item before purchase. Another step I took this year is re-evaluating my Christmas list that my friends and relatives wanted so badly to get their hands on. Instead of asking for stuff, I asked for time. If they insisted on real physical items I gave them ideas like new smoke detectors as we have an insufficient amount in our house. My in laws have even jumped on board with this no stuff Christmas idea that I have been promoting and have decided not to make any purchases for the holidays this year. Instead they wish to make valuable and usable gifts like knitting scarves and dishcloths. What I would like to do in the future is really make a strong effort to cut gift giving and receiving out of my life. Over the past year I really learned the value of time and nature and spending and sharing it with loved ones through my diagnosis with cancer. No material item in the world can replace the connection you get with a human being; that face to face time. I pledge to spend more time with my family and friends by going on walks together rather than sitting around at home in the living room wasting energy around a bunch of products that will end up being e-waste. I pledge that I will walk to stores with my room mates to do our grocery shopping as not to waste fuel, and promote a connected way of living as opposed to a disconnected way. I pledge to unplug for the evening by 8 oclock and plug in to family time.
What are your primary concerns about the oceans? What if anything do you plan to do about it?
My primary concerns about the oceans are that the wildlife and plant life are being drastically affected by the amount of plastic going in to the oceans. It disgusts me that animals who don't know any better end up consuming our waste and dying because of it. Humans should never have being this careless and reckless with our production of plastics and the disposal of plastics. In the past I have participated in minor beach clean ups on Vancouver Island with my relatives out in BC. Part of my plan to try to help the issue is advocating the use of face washes and body scrubs sans micro-beads. I have already started to spread the word about these plastic micro-beads and how they don't degrade through water treatment and end up in our water ways, to family and friends. Most have taken this into serious consideration and wish to implement a no micro-bead purchasing style.
Ecosystems and Human Well-being
This reading addresses the issue of the degradation of the earths ecosystems and the issues that have arisen as a result of human interference with the ecosystems. While we benefit from the use and over use of our ecosystems to develop our economy and ways of life, we need to truly assess where the things such as water, food, timber, fibre and fuel are coming from and how that effects our ecosystems and the impact we are having on them by our consumerist views. While we only see the true degradation of these ecosystems in less developed parts of the world where they strictly rely on the land to live I believe that we will being to see these depletions in generations to come. Change needs to be made to alleviate the burden of our actions on this planet and our ecosystems, but that doesn't only mean change in our individual actions it means a global change. Governments need to get on board as well as major producers of all products; food, fuel, and the catch all term "stuff" included, to make a big and needed change when it comes to the impact we have on our ecosystems. Why is it difficult to manage ecosystems sustainably? It is difficult because the world is caught up in consuming and spending. Our world revolves around stuff and taking from the planet. Individuals and governments see no profit and little value in salvaging ecosystems and our environment. There is never enough money in their budget to set aside for the important things that keep this earth spinning, but there is always plenty of money to invest in things that will make this world cease to exist. We continue to live in ways that fuel the fire of "it's the next generations problem, they can clean up our mess" when the problem is now and the solution needs to happen now.
Impacts of Biodiversity Loss on Ocean Ecosystem Services
This reading discusses specifically loss of marine biodiversity loss, and states that is directly caused by exploitation, pollution, habitat destruction and climate change changing biogeochemistry. The reading shows us that marine ecosystems where there is a higher diversity of fish and nutrients there is more stability allowing the ecosystem to be more resistant to change. If these species cannot recover from change they can no longer feed the human population and can no longer flourish in their environment. Why are commercial fisheries in decline? I believe commercial fisheries are in decline because we are simply over fishing. Where they used to go out on to the water and catch thousands, if not more, fish and were relentless in their catching, they have bled the ecosystem dry. Fish cannot reproduce fast enough for their fishing habits. Laws on limiting commercial fisheries in how much they can catch has also been a set back that I have encountered in the news. Commercial fishing is no longer sustainable.
Living Downstream
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| This is me on my last day of chemotherapy, the day I won. |
The author of this article recounts her diagnosis of bladder cancer and how she wondered why these kind of gene mutations could happen. Even though there are known carcinogens being released in to the environment and that some people are more exposed to these carcinogens than others, the risk factors are not translated to being an effective campaign to prevent diseases. The author discusses where these carcinogens come from, and that they are in the rivers, in the air, dump sites, ground water etc. She discusses how the world has blinders on to the effects the environmental toxins has in producing cancer, and that we are obsessed with heredity and genetics. She goes on to say that "two percent means that 10,940 people in the United States die each year from environmentally caused cancers"(p139) and continues with the fact that that is 3X the number of non smokers that die each year of lung cancer as a part of being exposed to secondhand smoke Why is it hard to tell whether-and how much-a chemical is carcinogenic in humans?I believe that it would be hard to tell because you cannot directly expose humans to carcinogens in a lab study. By the time the individuals realize they have cancer, they've been exposed to the carcinogens, daily, maybe weekly at an uncalculated rate and then we look back after our diagnosis we say hey, why did this happen? and make assumptions on how it was caused. Rarely can you prove how the cancer was caused. These assumptions are made by estimating how much and for how long you were exposed to the carcinogens but you can never know for sure. I have personal experience with this with my own diagnosis of Hodgkin's Lymphoma and this article really resonates with me. While it was highly likely that the uncontrolled burning of garbage and over exposure to chemicals during my summer job was the likely cause of my fast developing cancer, we can never know for sure.
This reading discusses POP's and endocrine disrupter's that we are now finding in the environment and in animals and their hindered ability to reproduce and carry out regular biological and hormonal functions. Studies have been shown that because of the shorter life span of the animals, the contaminants are appearing earlier rather than later like they do in humans. Some warnings have been issued to humans of the effects in animals and how it relates to human health and development. Is cancer the only health effect of environmental contaminants that should concern us? No. While cancer is a large health concern, there are many other health concerns and negative health effects coming from the environment that need to be addressed. It is important to be educated in all of the effects big or small and they all need to be taken as seriously as one another.
Environmental Justice for All
This reading is about minority groups that have been shown to receive less environmental protection thanm majority groups with higher power positions in affluent countries and communities. Dumping grounds and waste sites are often made where lower class citizens are living. For example, the tar sands dumping into the river which goes downstream into aboriginal communities in Alberta. It demonstrates carefully environmental injustice taking place around the world. What is environmental justice? Environmental justice means not only one minority group takes on the environmental burdens like pollutants and dumping grounds. It means that everyone, every class, every race, every person from every walk of earth is responsible. We do not place the worlds trash in one persons back yard. It is equal burden for everyone and by doing so there is a weight lifted from everyone shoulders and it is distributed equally. Uprisings should not have to occur for people to realize that putting all of our waste on one group is not okay and it should be more widely talked about as to where our garbage and waste and pollutants are truly going and the impact it can have on surrounding communities.
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