Every Little Helps

“Every little helps” is a favourite saying from the giant supermarket chain of Tesco. This saying tends to presently be applied to many charities collecting money, but also in related issues, where change is trying to be achieved. Change is needed in the way EVERYONE is living, to achieve a more sustainable lifestyle, to preserve our world for our children’s children.

Many a morning, I will be in the Kitchen, which I share with 5 other girl students, and think to myself, is it that hard to re cycle all our plastic and paper? So many times, I myself will just take the packaging from my food and put it straight in the bin without thinking... the next thing you know you have thrown away an item that could have been recycled. But that one piece of plastic would that help?

Opening my car door, I don’t even think about, why am I not getting on that bus that has just driven past me? As I turn my car key in my ignition, I have just agreed to allow my personal freedom and enjoyment of driving, effect the WHOLE world’s atmosphere, by the release of gases and pollution. But, would just that one bus journey help?

On an average Wednesday afternoon, Adrian Barritt, visited our flat as a surprise guest! The purpose of Adrian’s visit was to speak directly with the residents on campus, and see if we are recycling and what we can do to act more sustainably i.e. turning the communal area lights off. During this time, the other girls in my flat, who aren’t the best at recycling etc, did for about 2days recycle, as it was at the front of their minds, but now, back in the ‘normal’ rhythm of life, many of the girls just chuck away recyclable things. Did that one-off visit truly help?

December is a popular month, with the celebration of Christmas, decoration of houses is very popular, even gardens, homes, offices and any where possible with light decorations. This does in fact help many people ‘prepare’ in the time of Advent, but they are knock on effects of the huge amounts of electricity being consumed. In my small room alone, I have a Christmas tree, with fairy lights on, another 2 sets of fairy lights, another set of red heart fairy lights, a lava lamp, a mood light square box, also with my laptop running, alarm clock/radio currently playing radio1, and also daily the use of my hair dryer and GHD straightners. If I was to turn off just all my light appliances, would that electricity saved actually help?

New York, Paris or London ... that is a decision I have to make to decide where it will be best to get the January bargains this year. Would my carbon foot print make any difference to sustainability?

Fruit and vegetables, where would be best for me to buy it today? Will the more expensive food at the local shop, where I would walk to be better to purchase, or get in my car and drive to a large chain supermarket and pay a cheaper price? This kind of daily decision like the above, I face every day, you could say even every hour! But can my decision to act sustainable actually be beneficial? I think that if everyone took one step to being more sustainable in their everyday lives, the impact would be so positive and the effects could be massive. Although I say this, I know that when I return home this weekend coming up, I will drive around the local area, causing pollution, whilst admiring the amounts of electricity being wasted in the forms of fairy lights and Christmas displays! I guess, we all have a long way to go before the UK and the world is anywhere near living sustainably.

WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERANCE ON OUR OWN – BUT DO WE BOTHER TO MAKE A DIFFERANCE?

References

'Every little helps.'

http://www.tesco-careers.com/home/about-us/visions-and-values/every-little-helps

Representing Cambodia ...

The assignment just undertaken in the form of a UN debate was an interesting one, and one that I did enjoy. I learnt a lot about group work, and how that government policies are available for public reading (if they exist!). The country that me and Steve were set to work with was Cambodia. Researching information about sustainable development strategies for a majority country was relatively difficult and a hard task. This surprised especially due to the millennium development goals, so before I just assumed every country were pulling out every stop to be sustainable, but in the research this was not the case.

Out of all 14 countries – there were so many varied approaches in this race to achieve the ultimate aim of living sustainably. This was fantastic and great to know, even though many are unsuccessful. It was interesting to hear, from other majority world countries, who on the day to day you would not hear about their sustainable development strategies.

Steve and I’s presentation went fairly well, even though it was slightly unstructured. I was expecting to rehearse previously with Steve, but this wasn’t the case, as he didn’t turn up. This meant that I was in fits or nerves before hand, but when in the UN debate, I was fine. We worked well together, and we created a well organised handout – although we could have put more detail on it – but at the time, we thought that wouldn’t be necessary.

If I were to do this exercise again, I would defiantly rehearse the speech, provide more detail on the handout, maybe dress up and take the role play in to its true meaning! I did enjoy this assignment even though I did stress myself out – but I am good and pleased with our result.
I learnt about the ways that each country in the world, try to tackle the same issue differently, some better than others, but also how much the importance of sustainability differs. I think it helped me to see sustainability on a more national level, that the more developing countries should be bothered too.

I learnt, not to leave things to the last minute, in terms of our rehearsal. The team work between us was well distributed and it was also a challenge to work with someone off campus, as they aren’t just there in the next flat if you need them!

All in all, it was worthwhile and rewarding.

References

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/cb.html

Break - cycle : Does recycling really take place?

Well once again, I have woken up, eaten my breakfast, thrown away the plastic jam containers, thrown away the empty washing up liquid bottle, thrown away the orange juice carton, and this is all before I have got dressed. I make my lunch, there is more plastic rubbish, empty Frubes tubes, a can of sweetcorn chucked away. Do I need to say anymore to emphasis the point?! On a typical day, I fall in to a habit of calling what is no use to me anymore, rubbish, but is it rubbish?

Many county councils across the UK have started to take a tough approach on this idea that you can’t just dump what you don’t need anymore, because this style of living is NOT sustainable. The area of landfill is decreasing every year as we; human beings are the ones who are filling it up with junk.

In the borough of Northamptonshire, the Northamptonshire Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategy has been released, in 5years (2001/02 to 2006/07) the household recycling rate for the whole of Northampton has more than doubled, from the projected figures expected to be finalised soon. This shows a huge increase in people recycling waste and would suggest a huge improvement in the areas of sustainability.

When looking at the finer picture some areas of the borough, have increased hugely with household recycling rates 4% to a mighty 43.3% (KBC) and others only improved from 44% to 47% which is still above the UK average but has DDC found a limit to recycling?

These rates vary in accordance to district for what I assume are many reasons. Each district in Northamptonshire hold their own policies and approach to environmental issues especially recycling and household waste. With differing strategies out to encourage households to recycle, some strategies are bound to work more positively than others. But also some districts i.e. DDC have already reached a rate of nearly 47% of household waste being recycled, where as some districts are still working to achieve such rates. The issue that is raised from this though is, the percentage of household recycling may be increasing, but the amount of waste is ALSO increasing therefore, probably the same amount of recycling is occurring just in larger quantities.

If efforts are made to help households to produce less waste in the first place, then this is also likely to have positive implications for the environment, as well as reducing the cost of waste management.
(page 18 of the NJMWMS Strategy Report)

Some districts use a ‘fine’ system as a deterrent so that households WILL recycle. The variations in collections, not just the timing but what each borough collects will also impact the rates of household recycling rates. If accessibility to recycling is not made easy enough for people then the likely hood is – they will not do it, and this will add to the varying rates as well as the successfulness of the borough.

When observing the summary of annual waste generation per household in 2006/07, I was horrified that roughly, 2 people in Northamptonshire each year will create 1 tonne of waste – that is crazy!! The main way I see fit to reduce this huge waste generation is to cut done primarily on things like – food packaging etc. But also, to try and re-use so many things, i.e. food waste going in to a compost heap, assuring that all foil, plastics, paper is recycled, glass is taken to be recycled and that only rubbish is chucked out.

In Northamptonshire, there could be better incentives to re-cycle, so maybe if you re-cycle; you get so much off a bus fair, which again is encouraging the use of public transport. This would be better than not to have any incentive and in the current economic climate every penny helps!

Even as a university student, if I was shown the real life weight of a tonne in rubbish or otherwise, I would probably be twice as horrified, to when I read the statistics of how much household waste is created per year. In this, a better education of what we should recycle and why, may bring a better reaction through shock. It was only a few weeks ago that I moved in to my flat, but we have in our kitchen, a bin, a green bin for paper and cardboard, a blue bin for tins and plastic and then we also have a red box for glass. This really helps to separate rubbish and recycling and for a flat that does not have ground floor access, makes it a lot easier to manage and clear, even though some students are still struggling with what should go where.

I agree with the disappearance of carrier bags at supermarkets, because it does encourage people to think about re-using bags as well as other items hopefully too.

The one thing I think that not only our university would benefit from, but more communities would, is local compost heaps. I know they may encourage little rodents but, they would cut down on some waste, and as Tesco would say ‘every little helps’.








REFERENCE

Northamptonshire Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategy
http://www.northamptonshire.gov.uk/Environment/Waste/strategy.htm
(pp.17-19 Tables 3 - 5)

Can you believe it?

The reliability of the UK newspaper reports on climate change, like many other subjects, are generally created to sell papers, so therefore using shock tactics to grab a reader’s attention. A lot of tabloid newspapers, report on such issues with a light humour, which relates back to the general public, that the issue of climate change, is one to take with a pinch of salt. This attitude towards climate change will tend to also focus on the extreme results and causes, and very rarely link, in tabloids, the idea of sustainable development.

It is clear that when reading an article in a tabloid paper myself, that the seriousness of climate change and such scientific matters, are regarded as less important than those of idolising and the gossip of celebrities. I find myself over come with anger when flicking through many national UK tabloids, as the major headlining stories focus on the issues of celebrities, being a size zero, and creating a large stereo typical dream of ‘perfection’ which causes so many problems in peer pressure in our society, especially amongst young teenage girls. The UK tabloids have a large influential power over all their readers, to who are mainly the lower middle class and skilled working class.

‘[Media] is like a feral beast, just tearing people and reputations to bits’ – statement by outgoing UK Prime Minister Tony Blair to the Reuters Institute, 12 June 2007 (
Baldwin, 2006).

It is clear that even Tony Blair recognised the power that the tabloid papers hold, and with most of their coverage of climate change being light hearted the impact and influence to the general public is minimal. This also is in regard the link between climate change and sustainable development, as I think of developing countries initially in my mind when focusing on the term, sustainable development. With such emphasis on the problem on climate change, and not the ways to encourage sustainable development in the tabloids, the UK may find it ever increasingly difficult to implement change in our use of resources etc.

Boykoff, M.T (2008), underwent research and published his findings on, the issue of UK tabloids publishing articles on climate change. In Boykoff’s findings, the most popular articles relating to climate change where related to political actors, and secondly weather events. Boykoff also researched the tone of UK tabloid headlines on climate change. In 2006, most headlines where neutral (86.6%), a quarter contained fear/misery/doom (25.2%), a small amount hope/happiness (4.1%) and only 3.9% satire.

When I read these figures, they surprised me, as my understanding from personal reading was, most headlines regarding any subject, where either satire or fear/misery/doom. This re-assured me that maybe tabloids are indeed reporting on a more neutral scale, the seriousness of the issue climate change.

“It seems that mere ‘climate change’ was not going to be bad enough, and so now it must be ‘catastrophic’ to be worthy of attention. The increasing use of this pejorative term – and its bedfellow qualifiers ‘chaotic’, ‘irreversible’, ‘rapid’ – has altered the public discourse around climate change…” (
Hulme, 2006 M. Hulme, Chaotic world of climate truth, BBC News (2006, November 4) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6115644.stm Accessed 04.04.08.Hulme, 2006)

I agree full heartily with the above comment made by Hulme, in Boykoff’s report. Many people take a blasé approach to climate change, as although it is apparent to be happening, (it is October and it has snowed already!) the use of such fierce language for so long in reports have made people switch off to its importance, as it has been referred to too much as high importance, and nothing has appeared to have changed in people’s perceptions.

On the other hand, it is known that column space in UK tabloids is very tough to fight for when there are such pressures to hear only juicy gossip, and the environment we live in and climate change to many people do not even compare to such things, meaning the column space gets smaller and smaller. The increase in the use of satire and fear in an article, to make it competitive to read and give it that ‘juicy’ edge, causes me to be less reliable on such articles.

Broadsheet papers however, have always given a more accurate, educational and scientific background to their writings regarding climate change. When I pick up a broadsheet, I feel that when I read the paper, that I will be reading something of correct content and generally a balanced argument, rather than a provoked answer, like the tabloids.

Therefore, I find that my reliability of climate change being reported in the UK newspapers is divided between the tabloid and the broadsheet market. I always read the tabloid news, with a little lack of trust in what they write, but rely fully on the writings of the broadsheets. I trust the broadsheets to portray the actual facts and concerns of the issue too, rather than the worst case scenario like the tabloids.









REFRENCE
Boykoff, M.T.(2008), The cultural politics of climate change discourse in UK tabloids. Political Geographic. 27. 549-569.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VG2-4SWG0D9-2&_user=635273&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=635273&md5=d8cac79f85845dbd84976e612bfb92ad

Sustain – A – Drive

In the area I grew up in, on the South coast of England, many adults own a car. Living between two thriving dock cities, private cars where just a normality rather than a luxury item. As I reached the age of 17, I applied for a driving licence and was driving in my own car within a year, was that a wise decision of mine?

The common use for my Ford Fiesta is leisure. But on entering the car and turning the ignition on, I never think to myself 'what effect am I having on the environment around me when I drive?' It is an understanding that there is a suggested link between the carbon dioxide emissions and the theory of global warming, or acceptance of climate change. So by driving my car around, when I could have caught the bus, what effect have I had, a negative one!

The UK have released ‘Sustainable Development indicators in your pocket 2008’ guide to whether the government are on track to completing their targets for a more sustainable way of living in the UK. In this guide are 68 indicators of sustainability, one being private cars.

73% of Households in England have the access to at least one private car. In my street, at my parent’s home, in Fareham, every house has a drive and a garage. Every night, the road will be full of cars, in drives, garages and over spilling to the road. My household its self, will have 5 vehicles at least, of which only 3 can be parked off road. This is a re-occurring site over England as people become more independent and adamant to have their own car. The accessibility of being able to just get in your car and drive is more appealing to people than waiting for a bus or public transport. The problem with this habit and way of life is only just starting to show affects, as car use has dramatically risen in the last 50 years.

Barry Simpson wrote in 2006, regarding the idea to reduce carbon dioxide from road transport, ‘57% of carbon dioxide emissions from transport came from the private car.’ Simpson also noted that ‘Britain contributes around 2% of world carbon dioxide discharges and transport accounts 28% of this.’ With high proportions of private cars being used, carbon dioxide emissions are unlikely to fall, and therefore as an indicator of sustainable living, private car for the moment is not going to achieve its target, although is a clear indicator, that sustainable living cannot be achieved with such high emissions.

The enthusiasm of reducing carbon emissions will only reach people through the Local Authorities. As 72% of the English population over the age of 17, in 2006 held a drivers licence, there is no deterrent or initiative for people to be more lenient to use public transport or car share, but to own their own licence and theoretically speaking go on to drive a private car. Without better education of what the government are trying to achieve and more of an emphasis of every little helps and that we are all in this situation and we all need to cut back, then little will likely change.

Knowing the less use of my car and better use of public transport will benefit the world, for a more sustainable future, encourages me to hope on a bus next time I am off shopping!






References

Barry Simpson, 2006 Reducing carbon dioxide emissions from UK road transport.
http://www.thomastelford.com/journals/DocumentLibrary/muen.2006.159.4.203.pdf

Households and Accessibility to Cars
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/profiles/commentaries/housing.asp#cars

Transport 2001 Census
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=1935

Driving Licence Holders 2001 Census
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=1093

Car Access
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=1770