Saving the world: A student guide

You might have heard that the COP21 Agreement made in Paris last year came into effect on Thursday 3rd November. This means that countries including China, India, and the U.S. now are legally obliged to stick to the global temperature target of no more than 2°C above the pre-industrial levels, and to pursue a target of 1.5°C. This is a great step in the right direction, but cannot be done without everyone playing their part.

If you’re like me and care very much about challenges such as food security, biodiversity loss, access to water and global climate change, I’ve compiled a list of some things you can do to save the planet as a student at Southampton.

If you’re in halls, this might sound obvious but switch things off, meaning lights, extractor fans, lamps etc., when you're not going to be in the room or around for the day. You would be surprised at the number of times that I’d come home from a day of lectures to find bedroom and bathroom lights still on. I know it seems easy to use as much electricity and water as you want when in halls; some people say, “If only I do it it’s not going to make a difference…” But think about it this way; it’s a good habit to get into, especially if you’re moving into private-rented houses in your second and third year!

On that note, it's easier than you think to recycle (which all halls at Southampton cater for) and there are even annual competitions to win ice-cream!

If you want to make a direct impact on your carbon footprint, consider cutting out meat and dairy products from your diet. Not only will this save you money on groceries, it will also directly affect your personal contribution to emissions! The University's Vegetarian and Vegan Society will be able to help a lot as they are willing to help with any questions you may have, such as recipes, where to buy food, and general advice.

You have the option of doing your washing in halls on a lower temperature too, and if you invest in a clothes horse, you can cut out the dryer element (saving you money, once again).

Join groups which are environmentally focused. Green Action Southampton undertakes a range of projects including an SU Food Co-Op, to cut down on packaging and transport, candle-lit evenings at The Art House Café in Southampton (vegan!), the Southampton Climate Forum, and they also run the awesome Environmental Rock Music Festival! The Marine Conservation Society run weekly beach cleans in and around Hampshire, the Student Switch Off Society – funnily enough – switch things off, and I’ve heard it’s quite fun to run around campus and turn off as many plugs as you can…

If you’re more politically minded, you can join the Young Greens who meet regularly to discuss Green Party issues, and are focused mainly on change in Southampton, so there will be things you can actually get involved in! There are student groups for most major political parties.

Obviously, I’m not saying everyone has to do all of these things and join every student group starting from today, but maybe if you could pick one or two off the list and start there, you could really make a difference today.

Georgia

How to 'winter-proof' your student house

I don’t know about you but there have been countless times that I have walked back from campus in the pouring rain, books clutched in my arms, and then feeling an overwhelming sense of satisfaction upon reaching home.

Knowing that I am now inside the nice, warm and most of all dry fortress I call my house is one of life’s simplest pleasures.

But what happens when this fortress is always so cold?! Unfortunately, there will be problems with student housing in every city. Fortunately, there are people you can go to at the University of Southampton for help when you reach a point when you can no longer take indoor arctic conditions.

Every year, around March and April, a Sustainability fair is held on campus to promote green living in the student population.

 

Maxime working the Sustainability Fair.

I spoke to Maxime Jullian who works with SUSU’s Ethics and Environmental Officer about what their Home Energy Advice Team (HEAT) does to help students warm up their houses and save some much needed funds. With an apt acronym, the HEAT team is entirely student led. They have been sponsored by big names such as EON and are run by the charity called Southampton Hub.

HEAT audit student houses for energy consumption and give insulation all for FREE. The committee are also very keen to get volunteers so get in touch if you want some sustainability experience on your CV! 

The Ethics and Environment team encourage SUSU to operate in a socially responsible and environmentally friendly way. They educate students and staff on relevant issues and campaigns and are responsible for representing the interests of Union members in the development of ethical and environmentally sound working practices and empowering members to take action to achieve this, both with regard to SUSU and the University.

The Home Energy Advice Team are looking to do as many student home visits as much as they can before Christmas break to save students up to £500+ a year (depending on the size of property, i.e. number of bedrooms). They provide the basic and removable material so there is no need for you to involve your letting agencies or landlords as everything can be removed when you move out at the end of the year.

So, what materials do HEAT provide?

Some landlords don’t care about how warm you are. Most of the time, their main priority is to get rent. It is up to you to heat up your new student home. Indeed, a lot of student house windows aren’t double glazed and thus become unbearably cold during the winter.

HEAT provides:

Reflective radiator panels. This is especially effective if your radiator is stuck to a wall facing the outside. It sticks to the wall using double sided sticky take so it is easily taken off and moved to your new student house the year after. All heat that stays at the back of radiator gets reflected back into the room as opposed to “seeping” outside.

Here’s to a nice and toasty home…(photo courtesy of the HEAT Facebook page)

Seasonal double glazing films. This is especially beneficial if you have single glazed windows. The film essentially provides another layer to you windows to prevent heat loss. As stated by the name, the films only last one season. After a year it un-sticks and is not as effective but the good thing about it is that because it isn’t permanent, it won’t damage the property one bit.

Energy saving light bulbs. These use less energy, are more efficient. An energy-saving recommended light bulb will cost you £3-£4 compared to about 50p for a normal bulb, but will put money back into your pocket by saving you around £9 on your annual electricity bill and up to £100 over its lifetime!

Draft proofing tape. This tape sticks onto doors. Like the letter box covers, these little sponges pretty much close the gaps that let draught in.

Who knew how much money you could save per year just by covering these gaps? (photos courtesy of the HEAT Facebook page)

Maxime is a third-year BSc Oceanography student who plans to work with businesses to reduce their carbon footprint and save energy. Coming from a Natural Sciences background, this is something he’s always been interested in, and the University has aided him with his sustainability work experience. If you’re ambitious, there are plenty of opportunities SUSU and its staff can provide for you – for example, Maxime is part of the Business, Ethics and Environment Programme (BEES).

I think all this talk about saving energy gives rise to the massive issue of climate change. The University is doing incredible research on sustainability science and fellow student blogger Emma has written about the recycling projects the University has undertaken.

Unfortunately most of us don’t see the effects of climate change first hand. Most of the changes are so variable and so incremental that a debate even exists on whether or not climate change is true!
But this is the truth: we don’t often make the link between turning off a tap and wars around the world. That’s because most of the negative effects of climate change are experienced by the global south – by poor and, mostly, developing countries.

Sustainability is a pertinent issue. I’m glad the University is investing a lot of mind power and funds into it!

Don’t forget to get in touch with the HEAT team if you are looking forward to going home to a nice, warm house. After all, 'Winter is coming'.

(Sorry, I couldn’t resist…!)

Rylyn

Reduce, reuse, and recycle

It’s impossible not to notice that, when in halls or walking around the University's campuses, there are very few general waste bins, particularly inside University buildings. Instead, we have food waste caddies and separate bins for recyclables.

Recently I had the pleasure of meeting the University’s Waste and Recycling manager and we had a chat about the University’s system for dealing with all of the waste produced by its thousands of students and staff.

It turns out there are 12 people who are part of the waste and recycling team, and they get up to far more interesting things than the job title suggests.

 First of all – what happens to all the rubbish?

The University (including halls) has over 1,000 bins and produces an estimated 2,200 tonnes of waste yearly. All of this isn’t dealt with by the Hampshire Local Authority. We have our own contractors which means that much more is recycled.

The most interesting recyclable that the team deals with is food waste, which is why you find food waste caddies in halls and kitchens around campus. Rather than just being composted, which was what I thought happened to it, it’s actually sent to an anaerobic digestion plant, where the waste is broken down by bacteria.

 One of the food caddies used across the University

This process releases carbon dioxide and methane, which is used to produce electricity. The remaining product then becomes a high quality fertiliser to be used in UK agriculture.

This is why the University encourages us to separate food waste from regular recycling. If food is put into the mixed recycling, it becomes contaminated and cannot be recycled. This is why you have to separate your sandwich from its container before you throw it away in the staff kitchen or in the Piazza!

All the other recyclables are sent to a recycling plant where it is separated and reprocessed. A newspaper becomes a new newspaper within a week, glass is melted and made into new glass and metal becomes, you guessed it, new metal parts.

 So many recycling bins in Hartley Library!

If you live in private accommodation, glass can be recycled by using bottle banks (see the Recycle for Hampshire website for more). Within the University, buildings don’t have access to glass recycling since the University uses an external system, so glass can be recycled via the compounds.

For those of you in University Accommodation it is particularly important that you make use of the external mixed recycling bins for glass, and don’t just throw it away in mixed recycling bin in your kitchen. It is requested that glass is taken straight to external mixed recycling bins because of health and safety hazards for the wonderful people that come round and empty your bins. There are some special collections for waste electrical electronic equipment (WEEE), because anything that has a plug or a battery is required to be collected separately.

This whole system is hugely environmentally friendly and saves money, as recycling is cheaper than sending waste to energy from waste or landfill. It also means that materials can be used again and again. If money is saved by recycling as much as possible, then there is more money for student services - a win-win for everyone!

One of the posters used across the University to explain the recycling system

There is also a focus on re-using rather than throwing away. This year the team have worked with the charity Farm4life to divert a tonne of waste in the form of old furniture. The charity selected the furniture that was still usable and in decent condition, and shipped it to their project in Ghana. So far this has been a huge success and the team are planning to do more in the future.

Farm4life isn’t the only charity that works with the University. The British Heart Foundation collect unwanted items from students, particularly at the end of term. The estimated income from these donations in 2015 was £47,516. There is also ‘Shift Your Stuff’ with SUSU and at the end of the year unopened tinned food is collected from halls and given to a homeless charity in Southampton.

The waste and recycling team are key to making sure that life at Southampton isn’t just pleasant but sustainable as well, by emptying the bins and performing all of the litter picking,

Happy recycling!

Emma