WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.000 [Bella No] Hi everybody, My name is Bella No 00:00:02.000 --> 00:00:07.000 and I'm a student leader at the Office of Student Volunteerism. 00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:09.000 Today, in honor of Digital Earth Day, 00:00:09.000 --> 00:00:11.000 I want to share how I track my waste 00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:14.000 as well as what sustainability means to me. 00:00:14.000 --> 00:00:17.000 I hope that in this video you can be inspired 00:00:17.000 --> 00:00:20.000 to try some of these practices that I'm going to share 00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:22.000 and incorporate it into a sustainable life 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:26.000 and take away a deeper meaning into what sustainability means to you. 00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:28.000 So let's jump right into it. 00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:31.000 I'm going to start off with a little PowerPoint 00:00:31.000 --> 00:00:34.000 I made to give a briefing over what this video will be about. 00:00:34.000 --> 00:00:38.000 Let's start with this diagram to understand how we end up having waste. 00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:42.000 This helped show me how our products in our current environment 00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:45.000 are created in this linear economy 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:49.000 that ends with the item trashed after its useful life. 00:00:49.000 --> 00:00:53.000 So this got me thinking: How much trash do we generate from our consumption? 00:00:53.000 --> 00:00:57.000 Well, according to the EPA's estimate in 2017, 00:00:57.000 --> 00:01:02.000 the average person generates four and a half pounds of trash per day in the United States. 00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:04.000 That sounds like a reasonable number, 00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:06.000 and it doesn't seem too large of a number at all. 00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:09.000 Even with a family of four, we generate a total of 18 pounds, 00:01:09.000 --> 00:01:11.000 which is still not that bad, 00:01:11.000 --> 00:01:15.000 especially when I think of it as how I can lift that sort of weight. 00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:18.500 But when we start to scale up higher, like taking an average size classroom, 00:01:18.500 --> 00:01:20.000 the numbers start to worry me. 00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:25.000 About 225 lbs of trash can be generated from one classroom alone. 00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:30.000 I don't even think the average person can bench press that much weight in a day. 00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:34.000 And when you take the trash generated from all students at UTD, 00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:40.000 you're going to need a large company of bench pressers to carry 130,000 lbs of trash off our campus. 00:01:40.000 --> 00:01:44.000 But even a company of bench pressors won't have the capacity 00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:49.000 to lift 100 million lbs of trash that Texas generates. 00:01:49.000 --> 00:01:54.000 We would need to duplicate the world's strongest man, Paul Anderson, 00:01:54.000 --> 00:01:58.000 21,000 times to have the human power to carry that many pounds of trash. 00:01:58.000 --> 00:02:01.000 --and that's on the state level. 00:02:01.000 --> 00:02:03.000 When we finally reach the national level, 00:02:03.000 --> 00:02:08.000 we can make over a billion pounds of trash 00:02:08.000 --> 00:02:14.000 --and remember, this is all we generate in one day. 00:02:14.000 --> 00:02:16.000 This is beyond human capacity. 00:02:16.000 --> 00:02:21.000 We would need Superman at this point to carry billions of our trash, 00:02:21.000 --> 00:02:25.000 or 700,000 tons to make it simple 00:02:25.000 --> 00:02:27.000 --but the number doesn't stop there. 00:02:27.000 --> 00:02:35.000 If we imagine how our nation generates 700,000 tons in days, weeks, months, for up to a whole year, 00:02:35.000 --> 00:02:39.000 we've escalated the amount of trash to over 260 million tons, 00:02:39.000 --> 00:02:43.000 and by now, this may hurt your brain as much as it's hurting mine, 00:02:43.000 --> 00:02:45.000 but this is scary, necessary, to think about, 00:02:45.000 --> 00:02:51.000 because the EPA did report about that same number in 2017. 00:02:51.000 --> 00:02:55.000 If we had to pick one number to be concerned about, 00:02:55.000 --> 00:02:57.000 it's going to be the following: 00:02:57.000 --> 00:03:04.000 Over 100 million tons of that trash we generate a year goes into landfills. 00:03:04.000 --> 00:03:09.000 That trash is not recycled, not composted, not broken down for energy. 00:03:09.000 --> 00:03:13.000 It just sits on the land, buried for years 00:03:13.000 --> 00:03:15.000 --and now I'm very worried. 00:03:15.000 --> 00:03:19.000 Looking at how much trash we can accumulate in a day, 00:03:19.000 --> 00:03:25.000 think of how much trash will end up in landfills next year, or five years, the next decade, 00:03:25.000 --> 00:03:29.000 and who knows how long that trash will be around the lifetime of our planet? 00:03:29.000 --> 00:03:31.000 I wouldn't know. 00:03:31.000 --> 00:03:35.000 But what I do know is that this amount of trash we generate 00:03:35.000 --> 00:03:38.000 in our current economy is not sustainable, 00:03:38.000 --> 00:03:41.000 and that is why the United Nations has made a goal 00:03:41.000 --> 00:03:44.000 for responsible production and consumption to reduce this waste. 00:03:44.000 --> 00:03:49.000 As for me, I want to lift the burden off the earth 00:03:49.000 --> 00:03:52.000 and carry my own weight of four and a half pounds 00:03:52.000 --> 00:03:55.000 by tracking waste from the time I purchase an item to its disposal 00:03:55.000 --> 00:03:57.000 --and here's how I do it: 00:03:57.000 --> 00:04:02.000 When I'm purchasing food, I bring my own bag to grocery shop 00:04:02.000 --> 00:04:04.000 and I only buy food items I need. 00:04:04.000 --> 00:04:08.000 Now, this is still an area I want to improve on 00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:11.000 because I have my lazy days, busy days, 00:04:11.000 --> 00:04:15.000 days I want to treat myself to boba and food for takeout. 00:04:15.000 --> 00:04:17.000 To avoid single-use plastic containers, 00:04:17.000 --> 00:04:22.000 I bring a bag of Tupperware and a bottle to take home leftovers, 00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:24.000 or when I have more time, a meal prep. 00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:29.000 This gets me into the habit of cooking more healthy and personalized dishes. 00:04:29.000 --> 00:04:34.000 It also saves me money and reduces any unnecessary plastic or packaging waste. 00:04:34.000 --> 00:04:40.000 For the items I do have leftover after eating food, I use my recycling bin, 00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:46.000 which is a trash can I designated to dispose plastics, packaging, and all other recyclables. 00:04:46.000 --> 00:04:50.000 For the food I can't eat, I give it to my food compost bin 00:04:50.000 --> 00:04:54.000 that I got from the Sustainability Office on campus. 00:04:54.000 --> 00:04:58.000 As for purchasing clothes, everything I'm wearing, from my hair tie to my shoes 00:04:58.000 --> 00:05:03.000 are hand-me-downs, thrifted, or gifted to me by my friends. 00:05:03.000 --> 00:05:05.000 This was hard for me at the beginning 00:05:05.000 --> 00:05:07.000 and I know it must be hard for others 00:05:07.000 --> 00:05:10.000 to find something that that's in their size and their style. 00:05:10.000 --> 00:05:13.000 That's why I went to the Comet Closet in JSOM, 00:05:13.000 --> 00:05:18.000 That works with all UT Dallas students on obtaining a free professional suit, 00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:20.000 and for the rest of my wardrobe, 00:05:20.000 --> 00:05:24.000 I mainly leaned on my friends to shop at different thrift stores together 00:05:24.000 --> 00:05:28.000 so we had a better idea of which places sold a certain style of clothing. 00:05:28.000 --> 00:05:31.000 We also had clothing swaps or giveaways 00:05:31.000 --> 00:05:35.000 to get together and avoid throwing away old clothes. 00:05:35.000 --> 00:05:38.000 I found donating as the best way to dispose of clothes 00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:41.000 or any items no longer in use. 00:05:41.000 --> 00:05:45.000 The best way to make sure they get donated, reused, or recycled 00:05:45.000 --> 00:05:48.000 is to keep them in good and desirable conditions. 00:05:48.000 --> 00:05:51.000 The next owner would be more willing to accept those items 00:05:51.000 --> 00:05:53.000 and less likely to trash them away. 00:05:53.000 --> 00:05:56.000 When those items are good and ready to go, 00:05:56.000 --> 00:05:59.000 I make sure to look through all my resources 00:05:59.000 --> 00:06:01.000 and leave trashing as my last resort. 00:06:01.000 --> 00:06:04.000 If I can't pull in friends, 00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:06.000 I know I can always ask the Sustainability Office 00:06:06.000 --> 00:06:11.000 for questions on how to reduce, reuse, recycle, and compost. 00:06:11.000 --> 00:06:15.000 There's also Google to discover new ways to be sustainable 00:06:15.000 --> 00:06:20.000 or find nearby centers that may accept donations and/or worn-down items. 00:06:20.000 --> 00:06:25.000 My mindset is whatever waste comes from what I consume in my life, 00:06:25.000 --> 00:06:30.000 I'm responsible for where it'll go, so it better go to the right place. 00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:33.000 Now I know there are many different ways for us 00:06:33.000 --> 00:06:36.000 to go on and be sustainable or to keep track of our ways, 00:06:36.000 --> 00:06:38.000 but these are just some of the ways 00:06:38.000 --> 00:06:40.000 that I found that worked in my personal life. 00:06:40.000 --> 00:06:45.000 If you have some of your own you would like to share, I would be so happy. 00:06:45.000 --> 00:06:48.000 --I'm sure all of us would be very appreciative-- 00:06:48.000 --> 00:06:50.000 if you could share that with your community 00:06:50.000 --> 00:06:52.000 or you can even make your own video. 00:06:52.000 --> 00:06:54.000 I would love to watch that for you. 00:06:54.000 --> 00:06:58.000 I just want to make sure that what we do to be sustainable 00:06:58.000 --> 00:07:01.000 we share with each other and involve everyone 00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:04.000 to turn this into more of a collective effort 00:07:04.000 --> 00:07:07.000 and that way we would be able to make a huge impact 00:07:07.000 --> 00:07:10.000 on how sustainability can help our environment. 00:07:11.000 --> 00:07:13.000 With that said, let's move forward 00:07:13.000 --> 00:07:15.000 and be curious, stay conscious, 00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:18.000 and more importantly, let's start now. 00:07:18.000 --> 00:07:21.000 Thank you and best wishes.