Week 4 (ish): Awareness and Final Reflection

   
     Over winter break, I avoided straws like the plague. It was honestly really easy. Good news for anyone looking to follow in my footsteps! An unexpected result of this project: I have found myself making healthier, money-saving choices. Where I used to go to Starbucks at least 3 times a month, I now make my iced coffee drinks at home. When I go out to eat, I opt for free cups of water rather than spend money on soda. These are unintended but much-appreciated changes.
     According to an article by Colin Robinson (1), there are 6 factors that influence behavior: willpower, knowledge and skills, social motivation, social ability, structural motivation, and structural ability. Of these 6, I think that the social motivation aspect of behavioral change is the most relevant to my project and therefore the most useful when it comes to making others adopt my behavior. I think that a lot of social motivation has actually come from policy changes that companies and governments have made recently; Starbucks and McDonald's keeping their straws behind the counter, for example. I know that I, for one, am much less likely to interact with an actual human being than I am to just grab a straw out of a dispenser. For my part in social motivation, I've been very strict with my friends when it comes to their straw usage. I've been making them ask for Nitro Lids at Starbucks, and they now know not to even look at a straw when I'm around. Please enjoy these pictures of me forcing my ways onto the unsuspecting population:

her eyes say "help me"

he's thinking about breaking up w me

     As I have now undergone a behavior change for 50 days, it is time for me to reflect:

     Olivia, tell us, will you continue this behavior in your daily life?

     Thank you for asking. I do intend to continue this behavior in my daily life, although I'm not sure how successful I'll be. It is a very small, very simple habit to change. However, because it is so small and simple I worry that I'll forget about it. I think that this process was overall effective in helping me form a new environmental behavior, which means that it succeeded in its goal. I was someone who used and abused straws, whereas I am now much more conscientious of all of the waste that I produce. I think that, depending on lifestyle, this project could be very helpful in engaging my audience with conservation. However, this blog will probably matter a lot more to someone who buys a soda or an ice coffee every day versus someone who rarely eats out. This experience has also prompted me to investigate other behavioral changes related to sustainability. If I could do this project again differently I would definitely be more ambitious and try to eliminate all single-use plastics from my life. That being said, this project has inspired me to use Tupperware rather than plastic baggies in my lunch and bring my utensils from home rather than use plastic from school. So, overall, I would consider this project a simple success.






1. “6 Factors That Influence Our Behavior.” Google Docs, Google, docs.google.com/document/d/1MpQFvwuIooTTg9-kgWS7BDtYCTx15hRdlapEIfDBrVg/edit#.