E&E News
Living sustainably at Wadham
Top tips to reduce your energy and water usage in college:
- Turn off the lights when you leave – this goes for desk lamps, in your room and in the library too!
- Put a lid on cooking pots! Your pasta will cook faster, and it’ll save energy.
- You don’t need to fill the kettle all the way – only boil as much water as you need.
- Turn the radiator off before opening a window & close the window before turning it on!
- Switch electronics off at the plug when you aren’t using them.
FOOD WASTE IN GREEN BINS IN KITCHENS
RECYCLING IN GREEN BINS IN BEDROOMS
GENERAL WASTE IN BLACK BINS.
- VEGWARE CONTAINERS (food containers from the cafeteria) IN RED BINS.
- Please wash dishes in the kitchen sinks – bedroom sinks will get clogged and it will be gross!
- Please don’t recycle dirty materials – that particularly includes greasy pizza boxes!
Unsure of what to recycle and what to chuck? You can search for specific items using Oxford County Council’s tool:
When we aren’t in lockdown, Oxford is great for markets and zero-waste shopping. Don’t forget to bring a bag, and any tupperware / reusable utensils you have before filling up on all the lunches you can imagine!
Covered market: 08:00-17:30 daily (open hours differ for weekends)
Gloucester Green market: Weds, Thurs, Fri & Sat
OxUnboxed: Thursday through Sunday, 10am – 6pm
Check out Students of Oxford Swap Shop and similar Facebook groups to buy second-hand bop costumes, formal wear and domestic supplies.
Finally, you should never need to buy new books for your degree. Request Wadham library purchase the book for you (just email them) , search the internet for a free download or, at a pinch, buy second hand books and textbooks at a discount from Abebooks.
The best way to travel inside Oxford is by foot or by bike!
The Oxford SU offers plenty of support with buying and maintaining a bike in the city, as well as running semi-regular ‘Bike Doctor’ events, where a team of mechanics are available to look over bikes.
Wadham college also frequently reimburses the purchase of bike locks and bike covers up to the cost of £30.
Prospective students often wonder what they need to pack when moving to university, and the answer is – less than you think! You may well end up buying clothes and domestic items when you arrive anyway (hopefully second hand, or otherwise sustainably!) so don’t bother loading up the car or train with a ton of brand-new clothes.
Essentials (if you have them) include:
- A refillable water bottle and hot drinks container, for those long hours in labs or libraries.
- Tupperware – ideally glass, but washing out plastic take-away boxes will do in a pinch, when you make more dinner than you can finish.
- A reusable shopping bag, to keep at the bottom of your rucksack or handbag and ensure you never end up carrying an impromptu grocery run away in plastic bags.
Otherwise, just bring your fine selves and work it out as you go!
Trashing is an Oxford tradition, where students get messy and celebrate the end of exams. It’s fun, but can be very wasteful and disruptive to other residents of Oxford.
Guidelines for Green Trashing:
- Don’t waste food on trashing – one in four people in the UK worry about not having enough food to eat, and food banks are active here in Oxford.
- Trashing with fizzy drinks/ booze is less harmful to waterways and ecosystems that shaving foam and silly string (but if you’re going to use them, recycle the cans!).
- Confetti is a lower-plastic alternative to party poppers.
Contact the E&E Officer about getting reimbursed for Green trashing materials like biodegradable glitter and holi powder!
Getting involved
Where's Wadham at?
Wadham & the Sustainability Strategy
The Oxford Student Union took a look at the recent Sustainability Strategy (Dec. 2020) released by the university, which aims for biodiversity net gain and net zero carbon by 2035, and identified eight areas in which colleges can make a difference. Here’s a couple of the ways Wadham is doing our part!
Wadham has, along with several other Oxford colleges, a Green Impact team, as part of a national programme run by NUS Students Organising for Sustainability.
The Wadham Sustainability Working Group will be setting new goals in HT21, so stay tuned for updates!
The college has committed to prioritizing sustainability in all new builds, including the Green Award-winning Dorothy Wadham Building, and the Access Centre.
LED lighting is being implemented across college, and reduced-flow taps and shower heads are being trialled.
The Bowra staircases are currently being evaluated for the installation of solar panels.
Wadham’s cafeteria and hall offer a vegetarian and vegan option at every meal!
We are also a Fairtrade accredited institution, and are working towards a Marine Conservation Society accreditation.
See above for an outline of Wadham’s on-site recycling facilities.
Food waste from the cafeteria and hall is kept low because left-over meals are packaged and delivered to the Gatehouse cafe.
Wadham SU will usually reimburse Green trashing materials (eg. biodegradable glitter, confetti, and holi powder).
Wadham has bike racks at all of our sites, and reimbursement schemes in place for the purchase of bike covers and bike locks.
We are looking to implement more strategies to incentivise sustainable travel in the future.
We definitely have plenty to do in this regard! Feel free to look over the Sustainability Strategy or just get in contact with the E&E Officer/s if you’d like to initiate a project to Green Wadham’s thinking and curriculum!
Wadham divested from fossil fuels in 2019, but the Oxford SU is still campaigning for full divestment by the university. The Wadham SU is also in the process of switching to a more ethical bank.
Resources for Wadham SU Officers
In Week HT21, Wadham SU pledged to offer at least one Fairtrade food and one Fairtrade drink option (usually either juice or teabags) at every informal SU event which provides students food (this includes teas, brunches, and freshers events which serve food and drink.) This shouldn’t be difficult at all, as most supermarkets stock at least one Fairtrade snack and one Fairtrade soft drink – the Co-operative is reliable for this.
Here and here, you will find up-to-date lists of Fairtrade certified brands. Otherwise, just look for the Fairtrade logo!
Alternatively, the SU might bulk purchase Fairtrade snacks which any Officers can use for events. Some websites to wholesale purchase Fairtrade goods are found in this resource.
Designing, selling or in any way distributing clothing, can be a great way to fundraise or raise awareness for a campaign or event as part of Wadham SU. However, printing a lot of cheap, low-quality t-shirts contributes to one of the most wasteful industries worldwide – fast fashion. Here are four alternatives to bulk-ordering stash in advance:
- When sourcing the garments, try to buy second-hand or Fairtrade cotton, or ask people to provide their own.
- Designs don’t always need to be printed onto a garment or product. Producing bags, fabric patches or stickers for your event or campaign reduces the fabric waste and doesn’t contribute to the environmental damage of cotton agriculture.
- Instead of having a design professionally printed or embroidered, make it an interactive event. A simple logo or slogan can be really fun to apply to garments using potato printing or screen printing, or really producing of the above alternatives to printing.
- Use a site like Everpress to arrange pre-orders, that way the exact number of orders is produced, reducing the waste of bulk ordering.
ANTI-RACISM AND CLIMATE JUSTICE
‘Climate change impacts marginalised people and communities more significantly than others, on a[n] international and local level. Globally, the countries least responsible for emissions and most impacted by systematic oppression, such as colonialism, are those now being hit the hardest by climate change… the concept of climate justice takes into account the social injustices that a warming climate creates, and the historical and social responsibility of corporations and countries who benefited and still are from polluting and exploiting ecosystems.’ – Lea Oval, member of the Young Friends of the Earth Scotland steering group
More reading on this:
- The link between climate change and racial justice
- Indigenous Climate Action
- Black environmentalists talk about climate and anti-racism
ACCESSIBILITY
When advocating and campaigning for change, people can often get caught up in their message being catchy, persuasive, and effective – and forget to make sure that it can reach every member of their target audience, including disabled people, people from low socio-economic backgrounds and people with other accessibility issues. Here are five tips to bear in mind:
- When organising events, consider the accessibility of the venue (Are there steps? Is there space for a wheelchair user to maneouver?) and the inclusion of off-site components (a live stream, social media Q&A, etc.).
- When advertising events, clearly state the accessibility and all related costs of the event (and any concessions).
- In online activism, make available and signpost plaintext versions of all resources produced.
- In online activism, include image descriptions wherever images are posted – on articles, social media, and in published resources. This helps people who use screen readers and people with poor internet connection to access your good work.
- Include voices from a variety of backgrounds in the planning and delivery of events, projects, and resources.
WELFARE
Life at Oxford is busy, the climate emergency can feel insurmountable, and the two together can feel impossible. Try not to let yourself burn out, but make sure that you’re still completing academic work, seeing friends and sleeping enough – one person can’t fix the world alone. Here are some welfare resources for activists.
Any questions?
FAQs
- Is Wadham stash sustainable?
This is an issue that lots of colleges have tried to address! So far, we’ve discovered that if we produced Fairware or recycled Wadham puffer jackets then they would be sold to students for almost double the current price, so £50-£60. Whenever this comes up, it is generally decided that this price is too high to reasonably expect students to purchase, which might result in the garments being wasted, so no Wadham stash is not currently made from particularly sustainable or Fairtrade materials.
- Is there any way to make our vegetarian/vegan food better?
This is a tricky one – our head chef, Neil, works really hard to keep the menus fresh and exciting, but it’s tricky cooking for hundreds of people. If you have any particular ideas for mixing the menu up or introducing new recipes into Wadham hall, then get in touch! Otherwise, checking the menu ahead of time is often a good idea, and it can be cheap and exciting to cook your own meals, if you have access to kitchen facilities (check out WadhVeg for ideas).
- Do I have to go vegetarian or vegan to live sustainably / get involved with ethics and sustainability at Wadham?
Not at all! Though studies do show that the animal agriculture industry is one of the most environmentally damaging, globally, dramatic dietary changes can be very difficult for a variety of reasons. There’s tons of ways to get involved with environmental activism outside a plant-based diet – check out the ‘get involved’ resources above for lifestyle adjustments and campaigns to join!
- Do we have any schemes for financially supporting the purchase of reusable / sustainable items?
We do! The Women*s Officers generally reimburse mentrual cups and underwear up to a fixed price (contact them for more information about this). Plus, the purchase of a Wadham College KeepCup or metal bar cup will also earn you discounts on hot drinks and select alcoholic beverages! And finally, the SU has a long tradition of reimbursing biodegradable and green trashing materials for celebrating the end of exam season – contact the E&E Officer/s about this for more information.
Email me at su.environment@wadham.ox.ac.uk