Sustainable Tips: The Master Post

AM Lalor

Back in June, Act Aware put out a survey, asking the students and alumni of LUC for their tips for living sustainably in The Hague. Now, three months later, we’ve had a wealth of fantastic responses, and we’re putting together a master blogpost to gather together this knowledge. We’d like to thank Alena, Ana, Anna, Maria, Stefania, Isabel, Sam, and Sophia for these tips. This was done with our new first years in mind, but anyone can learn new tips from this list— we certainly did! If you think we’ve missed anything, email us (actawarecommittee@gmail.com) with your tips, and we’ll add them to this post. And remember, it’s impossible to be perfect all the time, so build slowly and don’t try to incorporate everything immediately (you might possibly go insane). All you need aim for in this is to improve yourself over time. 

Packaging and Plastic

• Buy a reusable coffee cup or thermos. You can use this at the coffee machines in the building, to bring a homemade coffee with you to Wijnhaven or Floor 2, or when getting a takeaway coffee outside the building (some coffee places will offer you discounts if you do so!). 
• On Wednesdays, there is an organic market next to Binnenhof. There, you can buy grains, oats, beans, etc without packaging, as well as cheese without the packaging, and eggs, if you bring your own egg container (otherwise they give you a recycled one).
• At Ekoplaza, you can buy nuts, seeds, dried fruit and cereal without packaging if you bring your own bag. You can also buy yoghurt for the same (admittedly expensive) price as Albert Heijn here, and it comes in a plastic jar which you can keep, or return for 40c.
• The most important thing, when attempting to reduce waste, is to be prepared. Have a good supply of glass jars, bottles, bags and boxes to store your food in. If you go out, you should also try to be prepared by having some cutlery and a tupperware with you, as well as your thermos. 
• For shampoo and soap, Lush is your friend! They have shampoo bars and conditioner bars, as well as huge beautiful cheese-wheels of soap which you can get cut to the amount you’d like. Additionally, all their packaging (eg on their liquid shampoos) is made from recycled plastic, and if you return three full-sized containers to the shop for recycling, you get a free face mask! 
• Buy a water bottle, or reuse a plastic or glass one if you’ve bought a juice from AH. The Hague has some of the best tap water in the world, filtered by the dunes at Scheveningen. 
• Reuse any plastic bags you buy, but avoid buying them in the first place. Bring cloth or string bags to do your groceries, whether it’s at AH or the Haagse Markt. 
• Invest in a menstrual cup or reusable pads, whichever you’re comfortable with. Disposable pads and tampons are a huge source of ocean pollution. 
• If you shop often enough at EkoPlaza, you get a beeswax cloth for free, and if not, they’re worth investing in anyway to replace clingfilm and tinfoil in your kitchen. 

Waste Disposal

• Even though AvB does not currently have its own official recycling system, there are recycling bins and a clothes bank only two or three minutes away from the building. 
• AvB also doesn’t have an official compost bin, but there is one in the canteen. It’s not strictly speaking intended for widespread use, but doing so might encourage the university to get its act together in this regard.
• Again, although they’re not officially designated for the purpose, you can use the paper and glass bins in the bike shed for your paper and glass waste.

Travel

• Whenever you go to a different city, you can get an OV bike instead of using local tram and trains. If you have a personalized OV chipkaart (the card for public transport which you should get once you have registered in the city and have a dutch phone number and bank account etc), you can get a bike from any (major) Dutch train station and use it for 24 hours for 3,80 euros. However, you have to bring it back to the same station you got it from if you don’t want to pay extra.
• In general, avoid flying as much as possible. If you’re travelling within Europe, going by train can be a fabulous experience. It’s often cheaper, though, to go by bus— FlixBus is generally extremely comfortable and connects practically every city in Europe.
• You can walk almost everywhere you need to go in The Hague, and if it’s too far, bike. 

Food

• Become vegetarian or vegan, or at the very least eat less meat or dairy. Consuming less or none of these products is the single biggest way you as an individual can reduce your impact on the planet. If you’re looking for inspiration for recipes, this blog will soon host quite a few. In the meantime, honeybunchofoniontops.com, minimalistbaker.com, veganricha.com, ohsheglows.com and lazycatkitchen.com are some lovely places to start.
• Plan your meals before you go grocery shopping! You’ll reduce waste, spend less, and buy healthier food if you’ve thought it through beforehand. Needless to say, try not to shop when you’re hungry. Believe it or not, you don’t actually want those jelly beans. 
• Buy food that is in season; it will be cheaper and better quality, as well as reducing the impact of transporting it. This chart will help you figure out when produce is in season: http://na-nu.com/terfloth.org/Kitchen/Season_Cal.pdf. 
• If you want to buy dairy products and eggs, the Wednesday organic market by Binnenhof is a great place to do so. You can get local organic milk, butter, and packaging free cheese, as well as local free range eggs. 
• The Haagse Markt is the cheapest place to get your vegetables. You can get a whole bucket of (generally) good quality veggies for a euro, and you’ll generally waste less food if you have to buy each item individually, as you’re forced to consider the necessity of each item. 
• Alternatively, you can sign up for notifications from Eco & Co, a group in The Hague that gets vegetables from supermarkets which would otherwise be thrown away, and sells them in 5kg boxes for €10. If you order your basket before Tuesday, you can pick it up at the home of one of the organisers at a designated time (usually Thursday 5-7pm). These are great to share with friends, too!
• Cook with your friends! It’ll be cheaper, use less electricity, and be a whole lot more enjoyable than slaving over the stove by yourself. You’ll most likely be able to team up with people who have similar diets to you at LUC: we have vegan, gluten free and vegetarian people galore!
• Another way to reduce food waste is to join the Conscious Kitchen. If you help them collect food from the Haagse Markt that would otherwise be thrown away and join them in cooking a lovely meal out of it, you can eat for free and bring home any leftover vegetables.
• If you do want to buy your groceries from Albert Heijn, go on a Sunday evening, when they’re about to clear their stock. Albert Heijn has to get rid of its expired food at the end of the day/week, and will label it with “too good to be thrown away!” It will be discounted, and still absolutely edible and tasty! You can get, for example, cake and bread.
• Lekkerbrood is the place to get delicious bread, and as a student, you can get a discount if you have a DuKo discount card. These will be sold at the beginning of term.
• Oat milk is not only the cheapest and most environmentally friendly milk, it’s also the easiest to make at home. Blend one cup of oats with three cups of water, strain in a cloth, and store for three days in a sealed jar or bottle. It’s delicious in tea or coffee, on cereal or to make oatmeal in the mornings (however, if you heat it, it might clump together).
• If you want to go out for breakfast/lunch/dinner, InStock beside the Hofvijfer is a delicious restaurant which creates its food entirely from rescued supermarket food.
• If you want to order food from a restaurant, try out the app TooGoodToGo. Restaurants and bakeries put up the food they would have to throw away, hugely discounted. The app is pretty new to the Netherlands, but it’s expanding daily!
• If you suffer from hay fever, it makes sense to eat regional products to get your body used to the pollen. You can get honey from the Haagse Bos at LekkerBrood, and honey from the Netherlands from the Wednesday organic market. It is expensive, though, but absolutely worth it!
• Use the Facebook group, LUC Food, to avoid food waste.
• Check out the Urban Farm in The Hague! They grow some vegetables and plenty of leafy greens, as well as providing fish. For the most part, it’s completely package free if you bring your own.
• Bring snacks and food in lunchboxes, and use tupperware when you’re going to get takeout. 
• Superfoods are fun to experiment with, but buying them can have an extremely negative impact on the communities that grow them and rely on them as a food source. Food grown locally in the Netherlands is just as high in nutrients, only it’s not advertised that way. 
• You can eat the hard stalky part of a broccoli and it’s actually very yummy.

Energy Usage

• Make sure you know how to use your thermostat! Work out a system for yourself in winter when turning the heating on is absolutely necessary, for example, by only putting it on for two hours. And wear a sweater indoors. 
• Plug out any electrical devices when you’re not using them.
• Wash dishes with cold water. A good tip is to put a small amount of washing up liquid in a jar or some other small container, and dip your sponge in that— you’ll use a lot less that way.
• Use a shower timer, or do a ‘navy shower’— turn on the shower to wet yourself, turn it off, soap up and wash your hair, then turn on the shower again to wash the soap off. You’ll save a lot of water.

Avoiding Consumerism

• You can buy as many ethical things as you want, but buying a lot of things still has negative impacts on the planet. Don’t buy anything without checking if its available on LUC Buy and Sell, or other sale Facebook groups in The Hague. 
• Don’t head straight for IKEA or Blokker, as there are many second hand shops around The Hague. The same applies for clothes and electrical goods. Avoid buying new if possible: you’ll save money as well. 
• For clothes, buy second hand as much as possible, or at least try the 333 project. 

Other

• Fruitflies are a problem at AvB, as you may already have found out. They travel through the building through the ventilation, so always keep your ventilation on, wash your vegetables before storing them, and keep your compost in a sealed container or in the fridge. Even with the best intentions, you’ll inevitably get an invasion at some point, so knowing the fruit-fly trap recipe is a must. Mix some vinegar, dish soap and sugar in a jar and make a funnel, so that the flies can get in, but not out. You’ll be a victorious fly-murderer in no time!
• Switch to a green bank, or sign up with one to begin with— for example, BNG.