24 hours

Hi there, it's me again. For this weeks homework assignment, I was assigned to try and log down everything I used in a 24 hours period which came from the earth. The assignment called for me to carry a notebook or smartphone to jog down my ideas, which I thought would have been a hassle and thought I could easily remember so long as I put my mind to it. Unfortunately, that was not the case, and now I wish I had put things down in my smartphone. luckily for me, I did pay close attention to everything which I used or came into contact with. I started my assignment from yesterday morning, March 6 2012, up until this morning. I was going to write down everything I used in chronological order, but on my assignment I was told to organize everything into categories. So although I will be posting everything into categories, I will list everything within those categories as I had used them, in chronological order.

Category number 1 was food and drink. First thing I had to eat was a bowl of golden grahams cereal with some 2% milk. Later, before my class, I reheated some chicken, rice and potatoes in the microwave. After class I had stopped at Clark's Nutrition for a few items and bought myself a bag of Boulder Chips. When I arrived home I made myself a bean and cheese burrito. I then went to TGI Fridays that night and had myself blackened chicken alfredo pasta and a wild-berry lemonade. Aside from the lemonade, I only drank water and the milk which was in my cereal.

Category number 2 included housing and other buildings. The only buildings I had come into contact with from yesterday til today were my house, the math and science building at Riverside Community College, Clarks Nutrition, TGI Fridays and my girlfriends house.

Category number 3 was reserved for transportation and roads. My source of transportation yesterday was a Scion TC and my legs, which were used to get me around yesterday. The roads i used were from my house to school to Clarks and back home. Then from my house to my girlfriends to TGI Fridays and back home.

Category number 4 is clothing. Yesterday, when I had woken up, I was using a pair of pajamas made out of 100% cotton from Sri Lanka. I then used a pair of jeans, a t-shirt which was 94% cotton, 6% organic cotton, a sweater which was 50% cotton, 50% preshrunk polyester, and a pair of vans to school. When I arrived home I put on a pair of gym shorts to clean and then work out in. After, I had showered and put on some boxer briefs which were 95% cotton 5% spandex, a pair of pants, and button up, some sock and a pair of boat shoes. At the end of my night I had put on the original pajama pants I had started the day in.

Category number 5 was school supplies. This included my laptop, which used electricity to power it. I also had my binder, a lead pencil, a pen, some paper, and my backpack.

Category 6 was personal care products. In the morning I had brushed my teeth, meaning I had used a toothbrush and toothpaste, as well as some floss. I then proceeded to put on deodorant. Later, after my shower I used my face wash, some cologne, more deodorant, and body wash. Oh and can't forget toilet paper!

Category 7 was leisure activities. This included my laptop(again) as well as a book I had been reading, A punching bag I have at my house as well as my weight set. I also have my fish tank which uses electricity to power the filter as well as the heater and light. I also cleaned my car yesterday, so I had used some vinyl cleaner for the dashboard and a vacuum.

Category 8 was for miscellaneous or "other" items, and although I'm sure there are some, I believe I was able to make them fit into the first 7 categories. Some items I'm able to name off the top of my head though that I know for a fact I used were my bed, gasoline for the car, forks, knives, spoons, cups, my phone, etc.

Another thing which was assigned to the class was to choose one of the item which we had observed and to research it. The item which I had decided to research on was the face wash I had bought yesterday. My reason for wanting to research this item is because I had bought it at a Clark's Nutrition, which is supposed to be a natural market, and I would like to see just how natural it is (or isn't) and also, because it seems to work really well so I'd like to know more about it. The name of the item is Desert Essence face wash. It's ingredients listed on the bottle are as follows: Castille soap(water, cocos nucifera(coconut) oil, tall oil, potassium hydroxide), glycerin, melaleuca, alternifolia, leaf oil, chamomila recutita flower extract,  hedychium coronarium root extract, fucus vesiculosus extract(bladderwrack), cymbopogon martini oil(palmarosa), citrus auantium amara peel(bitter orange) oil, lavadula angustifolia (lavender) oil, chomomilla recutita(matricaria) flower oil,  calendula officinalis flower oil, callitris introtropica wood oil (blue cypress). It's face wash, so I pretty much just wet my face with warm water, then apply a small amount to my face and rub it in, and after about a minute, I rinse it off. I got the item at Clark's Nutrition as had been mentioned, and it is distributed by Desert Essence in New York (http://www.desertessence.com/). I originally got the product from my mom, who had bought some a couple years ago when she was out shopping. Now I currently had the product because I had just gone out to buy it. When all of the face wash had been used up, I will either keeping the bottle it is currently in to put something else in it, or will just recycle the bottle. The product falls in between want and need for me. My face isn't really dirty to begin with, so I suppose I don't really need it, but I do need face wash. The effect on the product for me is great. As far as the environment goes, unless i just dump it in the trash, it should be recycled, and the company seems to do a good job for itself. All their products are BPA free and recyclable. The company swears that it doesn't do any animal testing, or use any animal derived ingredients. Now I'm not sure how they get the oils from things such as coconut or fruit, so that might be of some concern for the environment depending on how they come about that, but other then that, it seems to be fine for the environment. Was this product out 100 years ago? No, not this specific one, but perhaps some sort of face wash was. I was unable to find one, so my guess is people just used body soap for the face as well. As far as I was able to read, the only way to do more good is to buy something made locally, or to find a way to make home made face wash that is natural and organic so one would not have to rely on bottling and transporting of the face wash.

Now although the product I had did my research on seemed to have been a good one, I'm sure the majority of them weren't. Perhaps my body wash was used on animals and the company might not recycle, or perhaps the jeans I used required a lot of transporting and bathtubs of water as well as electricity. What surprised me most about this was just how many things I used without realizing it. What else am I able to do to conserve Earth's resources? I could, if I had a bike, bike to school for one, which isn't too far for me to bike. I could buy more local and organic or natural things. I could use my laptop to download all my textbooks rather than purchase them, although then I would be using electricity. There's a lot which can be done, and now that I know just how much I use through out the day, I can be more wary of how I can change that so as to preserve Earth's resources.