365 Sustainable Decisions Challenge

From some social network services, I get email notifications to let me know something was posted on the platform. But for some services, I don’t look at these notifications. So to reduce the traffic and the storage space on my computer, I canceled receiving them.

As unfortunately some plants were stepped upon by children who were playing in my garden, I decided to make a kind of fence from rope. But to be able to get water for the plants, I also needed a gate. To be able to open the fence, I made a system with corks: I can hook the cork through a loop, so that the rope is straight; by unhooking the cork, I can loosen the rope. This requires a lot less material than a wooden fence/gate and is hardly visible.

Whenever I have to keep pages together, I use a staple. But I learned that when I have between two and four pages, I can also keep them together by folding and cutting.

Whenever I have a call and I use video, it has always been a struggle to have my smartphone in the right position. So I decided to make a stand from two corks, instead of buying one.

Now, this makes me happy: I have been shopping organic products, in a shop in which they sell without packaging. For storage, I reuse glass jars that used to contain pizza sauce. These jars nicely fit in my drawer, so that I can see what I have, and nothing goes off.

Buying an e-book is definitely also a way to reduce resources: no paper is needed, it doesn’t need to be printed and transferring the book only requires sending bits and bytes, instead of a physical book.

This does not always work for me, but most of the times, it is okay to read a document/text from screen. This means that I don’t have to print it and saves me paper and ink. (This text is the introduction of my PhD thesis.)

I love doing sports. To be able to this safely and enjoy it, I use proper sports equipment. In the past, I had for example different clothes for different sports. But as I can use/wear some equipment/clothes for different sports, I do so these days. This saves me money and less stuff/clothes. t-shirt helmet

When an alien tells you: "We grow plants that nature depends on, harvest them once a year and look at them for a week. Then we throw them away or burn them." What would you think? Doesn't make sense, right? So, let's sing this Christmas: let it grow, let it grow, let it grow.

I can‘t remember when I heard from it the first time, but I immediately thought it is a great idea to borrow a coffin. Because from a mere rational point of view, it is quite a waste of beautiful wood. So, by borrowing one, it still looks good, but nothing – or only an inner coffin made from recycled cardboard or wood – is wasted.  

81 days into my 365 Clover Challenge:  In my drawing class, I picked nail polish as object for my exercise. During drawing, I realized that I never use these products. That's very #sustainable too, as I don't need the polish, nor the remover.