Beginning

I have recently decided to try going green. I was encouraged to do this in coordination with SSC’s annual Women’s Leadership Conference (this year’s theme is "Going Green"). The first step was talking to my roommates; I wanted support and perhaps participation by roommates. As I began talking to my roommates about it I got mixed reactions from total excitement to confusion. One of my roommates... um, Sara... thought I meant I was going to buy things in the color green. Sara, I just wanted to let you know this is exactly why we love you… :)

The next step was to figure out what I wanted to begin to implement. I discussed this with my roommates and I decided to go with cleaning supplies, shopping bags, and some personal care products. Some of you may be thinking what about recycling? Well, I live in a dorm and my roommates and I already recycle what we can with the program in the dorms. We plan to continue recycling but that won’t require changes on our part.

We also plan to just think greener about things we do on a regular basis. For example, bring our own coffee thermoses to dunkins and starbucks or buying things in bulk and packaging them ourselves rather than buying pre-packaged items. This past weekend, my roommate, Nicole, and I went and did some shopping for the fundamentals. We got things to make cleaning supplies (such as baking soda), bought Seventh Generation toilet paper and dishwasher detergent, and bought personal care products at Lush (shampoo and soap). Note: we used our reusable shopping bags for all our purchases!!

This is the beginning of what may be a long and interesting process. I think that it is important to implement things on an as needed basis, especially since we are all on a budget. In addition, I think that the hardest thing about changing aspects of one’s routine is remembering to do so and making a conscious effort to make changes.