Is Living Sustainably Accessible for Everyone?

Living sustainably to me (as I mention every week haha) is not just about having a good attitude towards the environment but also allowing our lifestyle to be sustainable for us. There’s no point living a highly stressed life just so you can be producing no waste and having a carbon footprint of zero. A sustainable lifestyle should be sustainable for the planet AND for you. I have been reading a lot of articles recently on whether going ‘0 waste’ is actually a viable option for many people. My degree is in environmental science with human and physical geography so I am really interested in disparities between humans due to their socio-economic status. This specific article actually said that this 0 waste, healthy living sustainable lifestyle was only for people in the middle class with a lot of spare time on their hands and some extra money. 

What I took away from this article is that not everyone has spare time to drive all the way to a famers market just to get seasonal local produce and not everyone has the time or access to shops where you can bulk buy oats for the month in refillable containers. I don’t drive and therefore I am confined to Keele campus unless I get a bus to Hanley. Firstly I don’t know of any shops in the local area where I can take my own containers and fill them up to reduce plastic waste and I don’t know any local farmers markets where I can get local produce whilst on a student budget. Even at home (whilst I don’t live in a city) I do not know of any shops like this in the area. Now I have a lovely home but the town I live in is much like Newcastle-Under-Lyme, mainly made up of bargain shops and charity shops. I feel in wealthier and possibly more ‘hipster’ areas like London and Brighton there would be a greater option of access to more sustainable resources like a shop where you can take your own containers to refill and there being better access to vegan restaurants and local produce. However, having said this I think in some places there just isn’t the demand for services like this maybe due to lack of education on sustainable living. For example my local town has a Facebook group page that anyone can post on. Most posts get around 20-30 comments depending on the topic. Last week there was a topic about possibly having a shop where you can take your refillable containers and only 7 people seemed interested by reacting to this post. This is one of the reasons why I believe it is so important to encourage children in schools to learn about being eco friendly and looking after our planet. At the end of the day it is this generation which will be dealing with the consequences in the future. 

I don’t think people should be spending hours of their days just going out of their way to get access to more sustainable products. I feel like it should be something that should just be incorporated into everyday lives. Not everyone has the time to live a zero waste lifestyle. But everyone has the capability to make more sustainable choices; even something as small as taking their own shopping bags to the supermarket or composting any food waste. Simple things like this are what we are trying to encourage on campus and to everyone in their everyday lives. Don’t cause yourself stress over every small thing you do that is not deemed sustainable. Instead learn from what you have done and how you can make that choice more sustainable next time. For example say you forget your bags at the shops, buy more bags for life and just keep reusing them - they are brilliant for moving stuff in and out of uni when it comes to the end of the year. Don’t stay up all night transferring bulk items into mini containers, whilst everyone wants kitchen cupboards as aesthetic and as organised as Lily’s I personally don’t have time for this! Also some people spend their lives living pay check to pay check with their payslips  going straight on rent, bills, childcare and food. Not everyone can afford to buy a months worth of food in one go. Whilst it can be cheaper in the long run not everyone has access to that amount of money at once and they find it easier to buy smaller amounts over a long period of time, similar to buying a phone outright or having it on a monthly contract.

In conclusion not everyone has the capability of living fully sustainable lifestyle the way it is presented on social media like Instagram and YouTube and we shouldn’t feel guilty for this. At the end of the day social media only shows us one side of the story and not what is happening behind the camera. I’m a strong believer of not believing everything we read online, I feel like we can be encouraged and motivated by it but we should never feel ashamed that we’re not doing enough. Making sustainable choices that fit into our lifestyles is a great start at making our lives as students greener!

An Indoor Generation

I was reading about an interesting concept the other day; that we are an ‘indoor generation’ and the more I thought about it the more I realised how truthful and worrying this is. The article (linked at the bottom) estimated that in the UK we spend 92% of our time indoors! I thought this cannot be true but then I thought about my average day on campus. The only time I really get outside is when I am walking to lectures or to the shop. Twice a week I do go for a run in the mornings, but this is normally in the dark. We seem to have found a way to spend our time living indoors. We don’t need sunlight as we have artificial light and who would go for a run in the mud outside when you can run on a treadmill. These thoughts are not something i would consider being 'sustainable'.

Looking back in history to when we didn’t have electricity and so used real fires for heating and candles for light we have always tried to make our homes a place of comfort. But is this life of comfort actually doing more damage than good? In 2016 the NHS estimated that 1 in every 5 people have low levels of vitamin D and now more and more people are choosing to take a supplement for it. Me included! Whilst electricity is benefitting our lives in so many ways we cannot rely on it for everything. People are moving from house to car to office and they’re not spending any time in the fresh air. The convenience of cars has also affected this. I was lucky enough to get a job this summer that was only a 30-minute walk from my house or about a 10-minute drive. Unfortunately, I cannot drive so I walked to work every day and I was shocked that every morning I did not see a single other person walking! Sometimes I feel like we are turning into the people from Disney’s film WALL-E!

I want to challenge everyone reading this post to try and spend more time outside this week. I know the weather has been rubbish but we are so lucky to have such a big and beautiful campus. Go out there and try and spend at least 15 minutes just taking everything in. Turn off your phones and take off your headphones and just appreciate the world we live in. Ask a friend and explore Keele woods together and have a good catch up. Turn your lights off at your house and open your curtains to let the natural sunlight in, in the morning. It is so much easier to wake up to natural light and fresh air than a stuffy room powered by electricity. You will wake up better and be cutting down on the electricity you use, reducing your carbon footprint and saving the planet!! At the bungalow we are lucky enough to have a garden to spend time in and you will often see Lily out there! If you wanted to do something productive outside, then come and give us a hand with the garden! All help is greatly appreciated.

With mental health issues affecting many people of our age group I strongly believe that taking just 15 minutes a day to come off social media and spend time outside will help improve not only physical health but mental health. Also World Mental Health Day is coming up on the 10th of October! So, this week get outside, get your windows open and just let the natural environment into your life. Stop making boundaries between yourself and the outside, embrace it!

- Lo 

https://road.cc/content/news/217728-brits-spend-92-all-their-time-indoors

Other Interesting Reads:
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/we-are-now-an-indoor-generation-this-is-the-impact-it-has-on-our-wellbeing_uk_5af548b3e4b00d7e4c1932ee?

Meeting The Bungalow Crew: Lois

Hi! My name is Lois and I am a second year student at Keele. I study Environmental Science with Physical and Human Geography and I absolutely love my subjects. I am the communications co-ordinator for the sustainable bungalow this year so you will probably be hearing lots from me through tweets, on the Facebook page and of course this blog.

I love going to the gym so you may see me around there on campus. I am also an early bird (yes I’m one of those annoying people that gets up at 5am) so if anyone likes morning library sessions (or EXTREME late night ones) I might bump into you there too. I am very passionate about the environment especially living sustainably in a way that is good for the environment and good for our health as humans too!

I came to a few Veg Soc. Events at the bungalow last year but I was always a bit nervous and intimidated about going inside. I want to be a friendly face that you will recognise on campus and at Veg Soc. If you want to come to a meeting but want to find out a bit more information about it first just drop me a message on Facebook or email us as we are a group of really lovely girls and we want you to come! Please bring either a £1 contribution for the food or even better bring a dish to share! We love trying new recipes out and if you like we could feature you and your dish on the blog, it also means you get to eat for free!

So as mentioned in the previous post we are basing our project this year on waste management and to begin with we are focusing on composting! Anyone who has previously composted will know that you need a lot of waste in order to get a good heap going so if anyone wouldn’t mind saving their compost waste and bringing it to us that would be much appreciated! Here is a brief list of compostable items (please no cooked food)

• ·         Fruit and Veg Scraps and Peelings
• ·         Natural Tea Bags (mainly clipper or pukka brands)
• ·         Egg shells and egg cartons (none plastic)

Just drop us a message when you can bring this kind of waste round or even better we can come and collect it for you!

We also want people to come and help us actually work in the garden so any keen gardeners out there please get in touch! When we moved in the scale of our task finally became apparent, so we will accept all the help we can get! To begin with we need people mainly weeding but we can offer you gloves and cups of tea!

We are running a stand in welcome week on Sunday 23^rd September (I will most likely be dressed as a lightbulb or wind turbine) and our stall will hopefully be outside Martins next to the SU. We will have a smoothie bike as well as lots of information about upcoming events through-out the year. Please freshers and returning students pop over and say hello to us.

So we will see you 1-4 at our stall on Sunday and then again on Sunday at 18:45 by the forest of light for our first ever Veg Soc. meet!  

-          Lois x

Welcome

To all environmentally minded students...

If you are a student and care about living sustainably for the duration of your time at university and after then you're in the right place. We are a group of 4 students looking at ways that we can make living sustainably on campus easier. We are living the the Keele Student Bungalow (near Barnes A-F for all those Keele students) and we want to spread to word on making the most out of university life but looking out for the environment at the same time. Environmental issues will be some of the biggest issues our generation has to face so by doing our bit now and incorporating it as part of our lifestyle we hope you will join us on keeping the Keele Campus Green.

We are running a project this year on reducing waste as students so follow on with this blog for updates on how that is going. But we will also be posting about other environmental issues that we are facing today. Feel free to drop us an email: 

thesustainablestudents1@gmail.com 

and click the following link to have post updates put directly in your inbox!

We plan on continuing to run the weekly VegSoc. meet in our bungalow (dates and details to be confirmed look out for updates!) and we also want to hold events relating to environmental holidays throughout the year for example Climate Week at the beginning of October! 

Feel free to share this blog with people everywhere and leave any comments on what you would like to see in this blog. To every one just arriving at university or for those coming back to start their next year we are all wishing you the best of luck and enjoy freshers week!

- Lois 

@loisreeves