Fieldwork Journal 2

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School

College of Southern Nevada *

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101

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Anthropology

Date

Dec 6, 2023

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docx

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Belanger 1 Emeline Belanger Professor Lasiter Anthropology 101 November 10, 2023 Fieldwork Journal: Environment 1. Find out how much plastic you use in a day by conducting a personal audit. You may be surprised by how central plastic has become in your daily life. Start from the time you wake up to turn off your plastic alarm clock, wash your hair and brush your teeth in the bathroom, open your refrigerator, put on your clothes, change a diaper, ride transportation, go to school and work, buy your lunch, and go shopping. What about your electronics? How many plastic bottles, cups, straws, utensils, stirrers, resealable bags, shopping bags, and food containers or wrappers do you use? Take careful field notes. In a day, the first plastic I use is from the straw of my water bottle before turning off the alarm from my cell phone. Directly following I brush my teeth, and although I use a bamboo toothbrush, the toothpaste comes out of plastic tube. Same with my deodorant as well as my perfume. I brush my hair with my favorite plastic combs. While doing my makeup, I use a plastic tube of mascara, fake freckle, and highlighter. Going downstairs to eat something, I usually open plastic Tupperware to eat leftover dinner from the previous night. After eating, what is usually lunch, I go back to my room to change into my clothing for work, usually including microplastics. I then grab my work bag and pull out my badge, which is made of plastic as well as covered in a plastic protective case. I grab my car keys, which are made from plastic and metal, and my water bottle, to refill, and slip on my shoes. When I get back downstairs, I fill my water and grab another plastic Tupperware with my dinner, as well as a set of silverware, sometimes plastic, sometimes metal. I grab a few other snacks wrapped in plastic containers. When I get to

Belanger 2 work, I use my badge to get in the building and within 15 minutes, I must make another 10 badges for other employees. While working, I use my plastic keyboard and my plastic computer screen to complete most of my clerical duties as well as a plastic pen to write down any information regarding my employees and other notes. I usually snack on a few candies, discarding the plastic wrappers into a trash bin. During my lunch, I will usually have another candy and eat my lunch from the Tupperware container. The next time I use plastic is from my binder of notes from work and then again to clock out on the computer and badge out of the building. Upon driving home, I use my car, which has many plastic components, to get home. When I get home, I take a shower. I wash my hair with my shampoo and conditioner from their respective plastic bottles as well as my body wash and face wash. When I get out of the shower, I grab lotion from its plastic bottle and my face lotion from its separate plastic container. Then I change into another pair of pajamas and head to bed. 2. What surprises you the most? I think it’s easy to forget how many day-to-day items are made from plastics. I think this is especially true when thinking about the car you drive. Just about every panel of the vehicle you use every day is made from plastic. I’m also surprised that I can fill over a page of information just specifying the plastics I use in a day. I think it’s also surprising in a general sense how much plastic is used by the inhabitants of the earth. The fact that following the same day-to-day consumption will likely lead to our demise. 3. How might you reduce, reuse, and recycle more plastics in your life? What would your plan be for living a day without plastics? Can you carry a “toolkit” with a non-plastic

Belanger 3 cup, cutlery, water bottle, and bag? What would it take to reduce your plastic waste by 50 or 75 percent? Can you change your behavior one day a year, a month, or a week? I might be able to reduce many of the plastics in my life by changing the places I shop from and buying many of the things I would use to cook from refill stores. I try my hardest to use reusable plastics such as Tupperware and using utensils from home. I think with more research about what is recyclable, I would be able to devote more efforts to recycling everything I can. I almost exclusively use reusable bags when going grocery shopping and in my day-to-day life, but with a kit of cutlery, I would be able to cut even more plastics from my life. To reduce my plastic waste by 50 or 75 percent, I would have to fine more environmentally friendly toiletries as well as makeup or cutting makeup out of my daily routine completely. I may be able to cut candy out as well or making things at home to cut down on single use plastics. Many of these behaviors, I can change over the course of a couple weeks or months, to convert many of my behaviors to be more environmentally friendly. 4. Plastic use is driven not only by individual consumption but also by corporate production. How might you, and your classmates, influence institutions, organizations, and corporations around you to increasingly reduce, reuse, and recycle plastics? Consider discussing with the manager or owner of your local restaurants, grocery stores, and coffee shops. I think within my own company, it would be incredibly beneficial to cut out the single use plastics that cover many of the retail items we send out. I work at a warehouse and see so much plastic being send out in packages when there are other alternatives to be sending retail items to customers. I think as far as other companies, there are so many

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Belanger 4 alternatives that are must lest wasteful that could cut consumption in half. There are good alternatives to single use plastic cups that would be more beneficial.

Fieldwork Journal 2

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