Ethical & Environmental Issues at Pembroke
Pembroke Green News
This year (2010-2011) Pembroke College is the Greenest College in Cambridge, according to the CUECS Green League!
We are still planning to improve energy efficiency in many areas, and reduce the college's carbon footprint through a number of schemes. In March, a voltage optimiser was installed, reducing power use in college. This summer, we will be installing solar panels on Foundress roof.
If you wish to receive regular-ish email updates about Green events in Cambridge, and progress being made in Pembroke, please email jp-green@pem.cam.ac.uk and I will add you to the mailing list!
Adopt a mug and starve a bin
Bring any mug to trough and receive 10p off your hot drink! The mug can be left on your tray when you're finished and next time you head into trough it'll be washed and waiting on a shelf to your right. This schemes aims to replace the paper cups which were just being discarded on trays and not recycled :( The facilities to recycle these cups of course still exist at the front of hall near the cutlery.
External links
There is also a University-wide Green campaign, run by CUSU Ethical Affairs. If you are interested in being involved in environmental/ethical campaigning at the University level, get in touch with them. Any help is always welcome. The Ethical team has been particularly active this year, and excellent progress is being made in terms of individual colleges, and university departments.
The Cambridge Hub is a student-led organisation which aims to co-ordinate all of the different ethical/environmentally minded organisations acting in Cambridge. It is definitely worth checking out, as a great source of information about the different groups and societies around Cambridge, and what they each aim to do. Their weekly email is a very useful source of information; if you are interested, subscribe here
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Ten Ways To Be Green In Pembroke
Here are what I consider to be my 'top ten' green tips for living in Pembroke. If you disagree, then tell me. If you agree, then it'd be lovely if you tell me that too! All of the tips are fairly easy to do - no major change in lifestyle needed - so there's no excuse not to try them! Just click on a link to take you to that section of the page
Recycling---Heating---Lights---Plastic Bags---Drying Clothes---Reporting Faults---Personal Electronics---Washing Up---Trough---Shopping
Recycling is dead simple at Pembroke. There's a recycling box in every gyp room (if there isn't in your gyp room then e-mail me and there soon will be!) in which you can recycle most things. Larger or more obscure items you might have to recycle yourself. Check this page for details of all the recycling available in Pembroke and let me know if you would like any more facilities.
Some parts of Pembroke can be especially chilly in the winter monthes. Fear not! In the bottom of Q staircase live the maintianance men who are happy to loan a heater to warm your cockles. These heaters use an aweful lot of power however, so please do remember to turn them off when you're good and toasty and to shut your windows before firing your heater up. Pembroke loses a lot of energy by not always doing this :(
Your main room light, your desk light, the gyp room, over your sink, in the toilet... They're really easy to switch off when you don't need them. You're an intelligent person. Switch on!
There are better things to worry about in life than plastic bags, but that's no real reason to use loads of the things. Sainsbury's do good sturdy bags and Tesco's have ones with ladybirds on them - you just need to remember them when you head off into town. For bigger shops I sometimes take a rucksack which stops me trying to balance all the bags on my handlebars. Lots of types of plastic bags can be recycled (see here) and there's a facility for this at Sainsbury's. I'll also put a recycling bin in the plodge at the end of each term for any you have lying around.
Not that I'm suggesting we all air our dirty laundry in public, but there often isn't any need to use the Pembroke driers. Picking up a drying rack (for example from Argos for a tenner) at the start of term will get your washing dry, save you loads of 50p's, and leave your room smelling wonderfully Alpine Fresh whenever you do a wash. Washing lines in your room also work well, just buy a ball of washing line and pin it up.
Getting in touch with a friendly maintainance man when you first spot a fault with a tap, washing machine, light bulb, etc... will save you hassle in the future and stop resources being wasted in college. The guys in maintainance are dead helpful and live in the bottom of Q staircase.
Of course use the equipment you feel necessary to make yourself comfortable, but make sure to turn it off when you don't need it. There's loads of cumputers left running in college throughout the day and it's a real shame :( We're not supposed to have mini-fridges in college rooms. If you're worried your food might go missing if you leave it in a communal fridge then have a chat to the people you share it with. People at Pembroke tend to be really understanding about things like that.
No kidding, you can be green here too! Doing more washing up at once uses far less water and washing up liquid. A washing up bowl reduces the size of the sink and thus the amount of water you use! You can find eco-friendly washing
up liquid in shops such as Sainsbury's and Oxfam. Something on my to do list is to look into eco cleaning products for college. If you want to lend a hand then feel free to e-mail.
There's a whole heap of stuff that the catering department does to help Pembroke be an environmentally and ethically friendly place. Plus cooking for such large numbers uses far less electricity. Taking advantage of what trough has to offer will help make a dint in the college's impact on the planet. And it's really tasty too!
This isn't strictly 'in college', but what you buy in shops has a big impact over three years at Pembroke. One of the simplest and most effective things which can be done is to buy things which have minimal packaging. By not taking home lots of bits of cardboard, plastic, foam, and the rest you're reducing your waste output and carbon footprint. Cambridge has some of the best charity shops I've ever seen. Don't bother with the Oxfam on Magdeline Bridge - they've seen you coming - but head out to the Grafton Centre where they are piled high with useful and good quality items.
Comments and disagreements are most welcome at jp-green@pem.cam.ac.uk.