5 Quick Tips for a Sustainable Semester

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By Alex Teerlinck

This semester has confined many of us to our houses/apartments. It certainly seems like we’re doing good for the planet with less traveling, but we can all do more in our day-to-day routines. Knowing the typical daily routine of a college student, here are some tips I’ve compiled to help you be sustainable from home and make a difference during this Fall Semester.

Make your own coffee at home! College students live for their daily coffee and it’s tempting not to go out to Starbucks or Dunkin’ to mobile order a drink that’s already made. However, the pandemic has led a lot of coffee stores to rescind policies on bringing reusable cups into the store, which means our daily coffee habits can pile up a lot of single-use plastics. Do a small act of kindness for the planet and make coffee at home a few days of the week! It’s 2020: even if you don’t own a super fancy coffee machine, there’s a lot of options to make your favorite drink from home. If you’re a pumpkin spice drinker like me, it’s only about $5 extra to your weekly grocery bill to buy some pumpkin spice syrup or creamer- better for your bank and for the planet! What’s not to love?

Go paperless with your notes! This one’s got a bit of a catch- Studies have proven that handwriting notes helps you remember them better. Good thing we have technology… If you can spare $9 for a one-fee-covers-all, Notability (on the App Store) is a great way to make sure you absorb class material as efficiently as possible while not wasting trees worth of paper to do it. If the app seems too expensive, another option: make things more interactive on your Google Doc notes for class with fonts, highlights, and colored text! Writing things in color has also proved more effective for memorization.

Do your laundry with cold water. The majority of energy used by your washer goes to heating the water- if you use cold water you’ll save energy and your clothes! Washing on cold preserves the life and brightness of your clothes. Unless you’ve got a really tough stain, there’s no reason to wash on warm. This is something I just learned about and I’ll definitely be doing it every load now.

Find a naturally-lit background for your online classes! As someone who’s online all day for most of the week, I know I’m already using a lot of energy as is. I’ve found a few spots in my house that allow me to open up the blinds and have enough natural light to go without turning the lights on! Use this tip as long as you can- Daylight Savings isn’t too far away. Soak up the natural light and save some energy during your day!

Cut your napkin/paper towel use! When I go to the grocery store, it’s still hard to find paper towels. Being at home more is good- it means we’re still taking the pandemic seriously as we should, but it also means many more napkins and paper towels used. If you can use reusable cloths in place of napkins and use dish towels as frequently as possible, you’re doing the planet a great favor.

A final note: These tips are only a small step in the right direction towards saving our planet from the man-made disaster looming over our future. I hope you all feel obliged to contribute whatever you can to a greener and more sustainable future. If you take these steps, great! I also encourage you to read up on how corporations are driving climate change and more importantly, how we can get them to reduce their emissions. It is on each and every one of us to care about the planet that brings us together.