This title doesn’t paint me in a particularly flattering light, and I don’t mean for it to. I’d actually always been in favour of saving the environment, but I’d also always been sceptical of the notion that personal actions can negate the colossal environmental damage of corporations. I had never trusted that by not choosing a plastic straw, I’d be making a contribution any bigger than a needle in the humungous haystack dumped upon us by society’s most corrupt and covetous.
Herein lay my general mindset upon commencing my academic exchange. I was eco-ambiguous, so to speak. I had chosen to stay in student halls, since it seemed the most familiar choice for a period that would be otherwise rather daunting. In my first year, I had lived in halls and had an incredible time.
I’ll spare you the details of just how different my experience was. Needless to say, not speaking a language isn’t particularly conducive to a wildly social time in the country it’s spoken in. What’s important, however, is how privileged I realised I had been in my first-year halls. Whilst I had embraced the indolence of being ambiguous to sustainability, my university had been working tirelessly to integrate sustainable systems into our daily lives. Where at home the kitchens were equipped with bins to recycle by material, my new kitchen lacked even a single bin and seemingly hoped waste would magic itself away. Whereas before I could balance my diet with semi-frequent visits to the campus vegan café, here the cafeteria food wasn’t labelled by allergens, let alone food groups. Far from claiming my first-year facilities were first-class, I began to yearn for their modernity around about when my toilet stuck on a constant flushing-cycle for three days straight.
I may have said that I was detached from sustainability, but that didn’t make me a monster. My raging conscience soon took me on lengthy trips to recycling facilities, a tumultuous relationship with vegetarian recipes and efforts to find more energy-efficient public toilets and showers. My newfound “activism” allowed me some time to reflect. Whilst I actually relished making this deliberate effort, it’s unrealistic for many. Sustainability should be easy, especially for those with lifestyles less privileged than that of a slightly inconvenienced student.
Upon my return to England, I’ve used the time I’ve gained back to educate myself on truly sustainable practices. I’m painfully aware that travelling itself can be damaging, and that starts with accommodation that’s just daring you to be wasteful. I can’t pretend to be an inventor of cutting-edge sustainable technologies, but I do aspire for sustainability for the average person. Its clichéd, but everybody does count, and even if my student halls block had all chosen to act sustainably it would certainly have made a difference. Therefore, I am advocating the education and implementation of imperceptible everyday changes in transport and accommodation whilst travelling, with the hope that more people can become accidental eco-advocates. I’d start with: https://www.responsibletravel.com/, https://ecobnb.com/, https://www.treehugger.com/.
