Students pledge to reduce environmental impact for one week
The No Impact Man Challenge is a challenge in which people choose to live with little or no environmental impact, whether it be not driving for a week and biking instead or even eating locally.
“The documentary gave reason to my issues with consumerism. That is to say, I have always found mindless consumerism an unattractive way of life, but ‘No Impact Man’ showed me how the non-consuming life led to a good life,” sophomore Kelly-Kate Crossland said.
The documentary was based on a man named Colin Beavan who tried to live his life with little or no environmental impact for a year. Beavan lives in New York City with his wife and two-year-old daughter. He prompted his entire family to live with as little impact as possible.
Some of the ways Beavan and his family lived with less impact was to not dispose of trash and to not use the elevator by always taking the stairs. The family also avoided carbon emissions, which meant they did not use air conditioning or drive. They also did not watch TV or use the toilet.
At the screening, Crossland challenged students “to pick a couple of No Impact actions to reduce consumption [and] dedicate a week to these actions and see how it goes.”
Freshman Dianna Verduzco chose to eat a vegetarian diet for a week.
“Literally the first day I started, I was craving bacon,” Verduzco said.
Verduzco said that as the week went on it got a lot easier and she found that Ragsdale made delicious vegetarian meals.
Other ways Verduzco attempted to reduce her impact was to wash her clothes in the shower, to save energy and to try and carry around a plastic container to get food to reduce her waste.
Crossland also participated in the No Impact Challenge.
“I tried biking. While I enjoyed the exercise, biking was terrifying in Austin,” Crossland said.
Crossland also washed her clothes in the shower, obsessively turned lights out in her dorm and took the stairs instead of taking an elevator. She did not even watch TV for a week.
Another thing Crossland did to reduce her impact was to eat seasonally for a week. Crossland was already a vegetarian prior to the challenge and decided to take this next step.
“This meant a lot of root vegetables because we are in the fall season. I did find myself missing different fruits, but not enough to outweigh the benefits,” Crossland said.
Crossland plans to continue living her life with as little environmental impact as possible.
