Changed my behavior slightly as I've used washable cups and mugs instead of trying to use portable water bottles all the time and it seems to be helping me out both physically and environmentally.

My goal was to become more vegan than just vegetarian in order to help stop emissions of some of the greenhouse gasses that  are emitted from farming. It went very well except for one slip up of a bagel with cream cheese. It was actually really easy I just ate more veggies, fruits and salads.

So my goal was to reduce the amount of plastic waste I typically send to the landfill per day by using reuseable water bottles (like the ones we got from the People Co-op) and to fill it up on a daily basis. However, my results from trying to achieve these two goals were pretty interesting. First, I noticed a significant decrease in my overall garbage acrued over the period of a week. In addition, I also noticed I was far more dehydrated, mostly due to the fact that I wouldn't accept any type of water out of plastic material. Therefore, I consider this mission to have failed due strictly to the fact that I haven't and continue to not consume enough water to make a HEALTHY physical change to my lifestyle, even though I tried pretty hard in doing so.

My challenge required me to not use grocery bags from the store. I did really well the first week and didn't use any. Later on, while with a friend of mine, we stopped at a store to grab some stuff for a project that we were working on, and I totally forgot about the challenge. I realized it as soon as we got back to his house that I used a plastic bag. Other than that one slip up, I've done well not using bags. I think this is something that I can continue to do when this challenge is over. 

I picked this challenge because I had gotten into the habit of leaving my fan on basically 24/7 and will also occasionally forgot to turn my lights in my room off. This challenge went well for me and I was more aware of making sure my fan and lights were off before I left my room each time. I also encouraged some of my friends to turn their lights off when they were not in their room. Overall, this challenge seems like a simple thing, but it for sure helped me make sure appliances are off when they aren't needed and I will continue to do this. 

One of the challenges I set for myself was to not buy anything besides food and it has turned out to be more difficult than I anticipated. I knew that I did shop a bit so I knew this would definitely be a challenge, but it also has stopped me from buying small, mindless things that I normally would have bought. For example, right as the eco challenge started I ran out of make up (sounds small, but I am reminded of it every day when I go to put it on) but have stopped myself from buying it. There have been other small items that I have wanted to get, but then remind myself of this eco challenge and do not buy. Not only has this saved me money, but it also is reducing my waste. 

This challenge has really made me aware of how many times I reach for packaged/processed foods out of convenience. It was difficult to plan ahead, but I can eat more local foods (and save packaging and costs) if I take the time to cook potatoes, pop popcorn, and make smoothies. I also began snacking on whole foods (though not local) like celery with peanut butter and raisins.

The challenges I picked in my opinion were pretty easy to fulfill because they are things you should do anyways. A major change is recycling everything in my room because we only have one recycling bin normally. But I designated two for recycling since I started the challenge so that we can contain everything that needs to be recycled. Also, printing double sided is a change because most professors like single sided when you turn in something official. So for my final bio paper I had to print single sided, but my chem lab reports and other miscellaneous assignments I turned in double sided since I started my eco challenge.

One of the challenges I did over the past two weeks was reducing water by only taking five minute showers or less. This is very unlike me as I take long showers in the morning to wake me up, or after a workout or whenever I am sweaty. This helps the environment by saving 75L or more of water each day. That adds up to over 1,000 gallons of water over the course of two weeks. I discovered that I not only take too long of showers, but too many as well. This only adds to the amount of water that I saved over the course of the challenge, which allows water to  be used elsewhere. 

I personally selected challenges that I knew would be something that I could make an effort to accomplish so i feel that I am doing a solid job of completing my challenges so far. I do admit that sometimes they slip my mind and I do not get around to completing them. The nice weather has definitely helped me personally because a lot of my challenges involve spending time outside. So I would conclude that even if i didn't start off strong, I definitely think I finished pretty well.