1. Carry a reusable water bottle
One of the most popular ways many students already reduce their waste is by investing in a reusable bottle for water. With numerous choices in terms of size, shape, and color, a wide variety of water bottles can cater to any individuals’ personal preferences and needs. While carrying the extra weight may be an adjustment in the beginning, you will be preventing countless plastic bottles from entering recycling or landfill systems on your account, and reaping the benefits of always having water when you need it.
Conveniently located hydration stations can be found all over campus, where you are able to fill up your bottle whenever you want, free of charge.
2. Bring a reusable coffee/tea mug
Using the same bottle for water and beverages such as coffee or tea is not ideal. Bringing a reusable mug with you combats this problem while also allowing you to say no to single-use coffee and tea cups, which cannot be recycled or composted unless explicitly stated. What’s more, many coffee shops (including some on-campus) apply a discount to your order for bringing a reusable cup!
3. Skip the straw – bring your own
Metal straws are small, light-weight, and easy to carry around. After a while, they will become a staple item in your backpack or bag. A good tip is to invest in multiple metal straws and keep one in each bag you regularly use, so that you know you’ll always have one with you wherever you go and won’t have to constantly think about packing it. Getting a straw or pipe cleaner is recommended, as simply rinsing the straws may not be enough to completely clean them if they had been used for a beverage other than water.
4. Invest in a reusable metal spork or utensil set
Utensil sets (made of either metal or wood) are incredibly helpful to have with you, whether you’re bringing food from home or planning on buying food on-campus. Although the MU does offer compostable utensils, bringing your own goes a step further in eliminating waste. Sometimes a preferred alternative, getting a spork combines all into one, resulting in less to think about and carry.
5. Use a hand towel
Instead of habitually grabbing for several paper towels every time you wash your hands, opt to carry a small hand towel with you. These towels can be carried anywhere convenient, for example, in the built-in side pouches many backpacks already have for reusable water bottles.
6. Say no to free promotional items
Attending a large university, you will likely spend some time, whether by choice or happenstance, at some form of event where free items with company advertising are handed out. While this may not always be the case, most of the time these items serve little purpose in everyday life and more often than not contribute to your own collection of random things, likely ending up in the garbage. Refusing such items breaks the cycle on your end, and frees you of having to deal with often unwanted items.
7. Make food at home
If you’re no longer living in the dorms and/or eating at the Dining Commons, cooking at home and bringing your food with you to campus is by far the most sustainable way to have a meal during classes. The same companies that make reusable water bottles and coffee/tea mugs offer products such as food thermos containers, that can keep your meals hot for extended periods of time.
8. Bring your own container
If cooking at home isn’t always an option, at least bringing your own container and asking restaurants or on-campus eateries if they could fill the food into your container is the second-best option. Even places serving food on reusable plates may offer single use to-go containers, and that is where your container comes in handy. As a last resort, you can always choose to order from places offering compostable alternatives to single-use packaging.
9. Use pencils (sustainable or mechanical)
If writing by hand versus on a computer is your preferred way of taking notes, using a pencil rather than a single-use plastic pen is a more sustainable option for you. Many companies exist that make pencils (and refillable pens) out of sustainable materials. An alternative to this would be using a mechanical pencil, and only refilling the lead as needed.
10. Bike or walk to campus
As a student, getting to class is (hopefully) one of your top priorities, and studying in the city of Davis makes using sustainable transport alternatives very easy. Biking is by far the most popular, fastest, and most sustainable option for getting from Point A to Point B. Walking is a close second, and, lastly, public transport (though the least sustainable of these three options) is a good alternative to cars, and great on rainy days or for students commuting from further distances.
