Finding The Others

 

Over the past two weeks, I have become aware that other people in the Lafayette community share the same barriers to eliminating plastic water bottles from their lives. While most of people at Lafayette don’t recognize the impacts of their actions, it is reassuring that other people in our class do.

I wasn’t at all surprised that the other SBCers who are taking on the same challenge as me are having the same problems. In fact, none of them even knew about the tap water option in Lower Farinon. It was a small victory for me, knowing that I was able to spread that knowledge to them so that we can all do a better job of eliminating the bottles that we used to purchase mindlessly.

I also realized that some of the other students have certain advantages that I don’t. For example, one of the other members of the class who is also attempting to eliminate plastic bottles, lives in what sounds like an off campus apartment. There, he has access to a dishwasher where he can easily and regularly clean his reusable bottle. I have to say, this is a nice perk of living somewhere other then a freshman dorm room.

To that end, I had a little mental help as I enter the final stretch of this challenge. When I went home for thanksgiving, I was able to bring my Nalgenes home and wash them. I told my parents about the SBC and they weren’t surprised by my choice to eliminate bottles. We don’t buy plastic bottles very often in my family because we recognize the damage that the cause.

But being home made me realize that I really don’t need bottled water and that my actions earlier in the year were definitely related to a sense of laziness. This gave me some confidence that I will be able to keep up my SBC actions in the future.

Before I get too sidetracked, let’s get back to the advantages of my newfound anti-plastic community here at Lafayette. One of the other members of my group wrote about how her elimination of plastics involved cutting out much more then water bottles. I have to say, I was very impressed by her level of commitment. Maybe one day I will be able to change as many behaviors as her, but for now I think that sticking with water bottles is a good start!

I would say only a few more weeks, but I’m going to strive for more then that!