How sustainable is your lifestyle?





(http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sustainable-Living-Dummies-Michael-Grosvenor/dp/1740311574)



To enable to understand how sustainable my life is, definitions of what is a sustainable lifestyle need to be considered. For example, with reference to Wikipedia “sustainable living can be described as living within the innate carrying capacities defined by these social, environmental and economic factors” Wikipedia: sustainable living. Though referencing from this site needs caution. Another definition of a sustainable lifestyle is “Living happily by making full use of all resources we have in order to have a guilt-free pleasurable life” from Sustainable lifestyle. So it can be concluded that a sustainable lifestyle is where decisions that are made in our life, are taken with consideration to whether they will compromise future generation’s wellbeing, though at the same time still allows us to have a fulfilled and healthy lifestyle. 

With this understanding, the sustainability of my life needs to be looked at through both my university and home life and my personal views that affect my lifestyle both the good and the bad.  At university I make it a ritual to turn off all electrical appliances when not needed, saving electricity. I also take showers instead having  baths, which is one of the things I don’t do out of choice, but are due to my circumstances, others due to this reason include taking the bus and only doing clothes washing when I have enough to make it economically viable. Whereas at home I get driven to places I need to go to and my washing is done when mum decides to put the washing machine on. Also since my parents pay for the bills in my house, I sometimes forget that running the bath, playing music on my IPod speakers and changing my clothes several times a day is bad for the environment, thus unsustainable in the long run. Though one part of my lifestyle that I do both at university and at home is recycle; I make sure that all the rubbish that I have, is separated properly into the correct bins, this activity is partly done by choice (I want to make sure that the rubbish I produce is properly dealt with) and partly to do with my circumstances (at home the council fine you for not separating rubbish and this also happens at university).

(http://gubinskycpa.blogspot.com/2010/07/bottled-water-costs-how-much.html)

However the majority of my personal lifestyle choices are made because I want to do them, for example if I had the time I would prefer to ride my bike to places I need to go to, utilising the resources that I have at hand to their full potential. Another lifestyle choice that I make with sustainability in mind, is deciding not to drink bottled water. For in my opinion it is easier, cheaper and uses less energy in the long run to drink and bottle my own tap water, rather than buy tap water that is more refined and has had a fancy label stuck on the front. My opinion is backed by evidence from NRDC: bottled water (point 7) where statistics show how polluting bottled water really is, and the video clip called "the story of bottled water" also examines how much a bottle of water costs us.

It’s these types of personal lifestyle choices that make me feel that my lifestyle is sustainable, though a slightly large chunk of my life brings me back down from my sustainability dreams, and that is consumerism and convenience.     

living outside the box: sustainable lifstyles
(http://www.theecologist.org/tv_and_radio/tv/549725/what_is_a_sustainable_lifestyle.html)

I am not proud to say that I own enough clothes to run my own fashion show and I’m not happy to say that when a new gadget comes out I’m drawn to it, like a magpie to a piece of shiny tinfoil. But this happens because I am seduced by the thought that products might make my life better or make me happier, but usually they don’t and when the seduction wares off I have a wasted product which is totally unsustainable. Though the real question is why do I think that I must buy the latest IPod and the brand new designer handbag to make my life better, when all along the ones I have already are fulfilling my life. The answer is due to the new culture of consumerism, with a way of thinking that states “if you don’t have it, your life is not complete”, the short musical called Consumerism: the musical shows briefly that the most mediocre things make people splash out the cash, just so they can try to make their life better and to make themselves look good, but people can manage to have fulfilled lives without having to be unsustainable. The video clip from the Ecologist called living outside the box: sustainable lifestyles, shows how material consumables don’t actually make you happy, which I am now beginning to agree with. Another aspect of my life is that I’m sometimes unsustainable due to the convenience of the situation, such as putting the heating on rather than an extra jumper; this is more closely linked to my home lifestyle than at university. 




Working in kenya



But there are some areas of my life where I have to be less sustainable to enable to have a fulfilled lifestyle, for example I like to travel abroad both with my family and friends which involves a lot of pollution. But with some of these ventures  I am able to balance out the unsustainability of flying with other sustainable contributions to the world, for example over the summer I flew to Kenya to build schools for underprivileged children, enabling them to gain access to education so that they can have a better life. This shows that, though I was being unsustainable in an environmental sense, I was being sustainable in social sense by creating a brighter future for a group of children.  Another reason that I have to be less sustainable at times is when I can’t afford to be sustainable. In one sense being sustainable involves a lot of money especially when it comes to food, for example food that is good for the environment (organic and hasn’t travelled far to get to the supermarket) is often more expensive than food that is less good for the environment because of the way it is produced and distributed. Another way in which I can’t afford to be sustainable is when my back is metaphorically against the wall and the only option is unsustainable, for example at home when I’m late trying to get somewhere, the quickest option is to ask my parents to give me a lift instead of a sustainable method; such as walking or taking the bus and being late.     

(http://cartoonsnap.blogspot.com/2009/02/she-getting-fat-she-balloon-jack-kirby.html)

After anylising my lifestyle from riding my bike and not drinking bottled water to buying up shiny gadgets and traveling around in Mums taxi, I have come up with the decision that my life is semi-sustainable. I have come to the conclusion of semi-sustainable because some of the characteristics of my lifestyle such as being a cyclist and a keen electricity conservationist, this shows that I try to be sustainable wherever possible in my life; where it fits in and doesn’t cost me an arm and a leg.  Also when it comes to my personal lifestyle choices, I am strongly for being sustainable, and I try not to be unsustainable when I don’t need to be, such as buying bottled water when it comes straight out of the tap and not of the back of a lorry. However as I am human and programmed to want to consume (as Lily Allen says “…I am a weapon of massive consumption, and it’s not my fault it’s how I’m programmed to function…” The Fear), it is easy for me to be drawn into being unsustainable; especially when it comes to shopping and how much easier it is to turn up the thermostat instead of rummaging in the back of my closet for a jumper. But my lifestyle is also semi –sustainable because parts of it are controlled by forces that take over the situation. An example would have to be taking showers and busses because this is what has been provided to me in my life, altering my lifestyle. Other examples include having to buy non-organic food that has come from the other side of the world or I won’t be able to by textbooks, I know it’s not good for the environment, but if I was to be sustainable the outcome would not be particularly good for me. Then the final reason for being semi-sustainable is that I have to break the rules sometimes to create a better outcome, such as flying 4263 mi /6861 km to Kenya to change the lives of a couple of hundred children.

So to answer the question, “how sustainable is your lifestyle?” I would say semi-sustainable, because even though at heart I want to be an ecowarrior I still need shoes and text books.