Kristine Steenbergh

Environmental Humanities Center VU

POINTS TOTAL

0 TODAY
0 THIS WEEK
355 TOTAL

Kristine's actions

Food

Smaller Portions

#3 Reduced Food Waste

I will use smaller plates and/or serve smaller portions when dishing out food.

COMPLETED 4
DAILY ACTIONS

Materials

Choose Recycled Paper

#70 Recycled Paper

I will plan ahead to only use paper products made from post-consumer recycled paper for my home or office.

COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Buildings and Cities

Plan to Insulate

#31 Insulation

I will find out how to make my home more energy efficient through better insulation and weatherization.

COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Food

Composting

#60 Composting, #3 Reduced Food Waste

I will start a compost bin where I live.

COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Transport

Use Muscle Power

#49 Cars

I will cut my car trip mileage by only taking necessary trips, and I will only use muscle-powered transportation for all other trips.

COMPLETED 7
DAILY ACTIONS

Participant Feed

Reflection, encouragement, and relationship building are all important aspects of getting a new habit to stick.
Share thoughts, encourage others, and reinforce positive new habits on the Feed.

To get started, share “your why.” Why did you join the challenge and choose the actions you did?

REFLECTION QUESTION
Materials Choose Recycled Paper

Good job on choosing recycled paper! How can you take your action a step further?

Kristine Steenbergh 4/18/2019 1:45 AM

I have just checked the paper in our office. It was sourced from responsible sources (FSC) and does not contain chlorine. It also features the EU ecolabel (with the sunflower) and the Nordic Swan Ecolabel. It recommends that users collect used paper for recycling. However, the paper itself is not recycled.

I will explore this issue further. If recycled paper turns out to be better than this eco-friendly wood-sourced paper, do I buy my own recycled paper, or shall we start a campaign to change the university's preferred paper supply to recycled?

To be continued!

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REFLECTION QUESTION
Buildings and Cities Plan to Insulate

What are some of the benefits of making your home more energy efficient?

Kristine Steenbergh 4/15/2019 1:38 AM

Lots of opportunities to improve insulation in my house.

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REFLECTION QUESTION
Transport Use Muscle Power

How do your transportation choices affect your engagement in your community? Does your experience or enjoyment differ while walking, riding transit, biking or driving?

Kristine Steenbergh 4/12/2019 4:36 AM

I am all for 'slow', so I prefer to walk to the train station. I have decided to make more time for this.

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REFLECTION QUESTION
Food Composting

Producing food that goes uneaten squanders many resources—seeds, water, energy, land, fertilizer, hours of labor, financial capital. Which of these kinds of waste most motivates you to change your behavior regarding food waste? Why?

Kristine Steenbergh 4/12/2019 4:32 AM

I did some research on adding a compost heap to my back garden today. It turns out my garden is too small for a heap, but I could use a compost bin.

However, since my city collects organic waste (vegetable, fruit, and garden waste) separately, starting a compost bin does not to be an advantage. The Dutch environmental agency Milieucentraal writes that it is unknown whether DIY composting is better for the environment than large-scale composting of organic waste. They do see advantages in terms of energy use and transport if I compost in my back garden, but they also warn that if not done properly, composting can produce methane gas, adding to global warming. It ain't easy being green.

To make up for the challenge, I will revisit the rules for organic waste in my municipality, to make sure that I am not adding things to my green bin that should not be in there -- I have learnt that composting is quite a tricky process.
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