During my stay here in London, I’ve seen a noticeable change from where I’ve lived in the U.S. in regards to sustainability. I am so excited to see this, as sustainability is important to me and I want it to be a major aspect in any job I may take after college.
A major aspect of sustainability is energy use, and I’ve certainly seen a lot of examples of London trying to lower their carbon emissions. On my ride in on A3, I saw a billboard that said “Ricoh: 100% solar and wind powered billboard.” I was immediately impressed with the visibility of sustainable energy use in London.
Other examples of renewable energy use have been EDF’s sponsorship of the London Eye. In each capsule, the signs on the side not only explained the skyline, but how landmarks such as Tate Modern and City Hall were working to become more sustainable. Even though EDF is primarily a coal-fired energy producer, I was really impressed with their attempts to inform people about the sustainable aspects of London. Also, when I was looking at music festivals to go to, there was a service called liftshare.com that promoted ridesharing as a way to “do their bit and reduce pollution on the environment .“ I was impressed that this service was promoted on the website of the actual music festival.
Another aspect of sustainability is recycling. There isn’t a radical change here, but the subtle idiosyncrasies struck me as making all the difference. For example, every box of every product I buy from Sainsburys tells what part of the packaging can be recycled. This is better than in the US, where to some people, it is not clear what can be recycled. My cereal box from Sainsburys also took a stand for recycling, where it proclaimed “If every Sainsbury’s customer recycled their cereal box, 750 tonnes of cardboard would be reused every year. That’s the equivalent to 101 double-decker buses!” All sorts of other products seem to claim what percent recycled material they are, like my Sainsburys plastic bags that are 50% recycled material.
On one hand, I am extremely excited to see all these revolutionary changes in regard to sustainability happening in England. On the other, I am disappointed at how poorly America compares to the prevalence of sustainability here. Hopefully, I can take the lessons I’ve learned from London about recycling and renewable energy back to America to find out some way to enact social change on a large scale level. As an environmental engineer at NC State, my courses will mostly focus on water quality, but I am intensely dedicated to include a sustainability aspect in my education. I know it will be hard, but one day I hope to be part of the change that causes America to be more sustainable like London.
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