Having come to university in the past three weeks, I have noticed that I am now heavily dependent on public transport mainly in the form of buses. At home however, I never use public transport as I have a car on the drive that gets me from A to B in no time what so ever! My car is still waiting for me at home in Leicester where I could easily thrash it down the M1 in little under 50 minutes and use it to get University everyday as I live about 20 minutes walk away from Park campus.
This however would be very unsustainable of me. Therefore to further improve the sustainability of my lifestyle I have decided to in fact sell the car and to continue using the free/cheap public transport around Northampton. There is absolutely nothing preventing me from doing this as to get home I can simply jump on the X7 bus and be home within 2 hours. To get to Uni I will continue to walk up that very long road or even get on a free bus.
As mentioned before I live in a house with seven other people. The bills are not included in the rent per week. This as a result has lead to us all needing to switch electrical devices off at the wall instead of leaving them on standby. Therefore before I go out I need to remember to switch the plug off that is connected to an extension cable which is connected to the TV, Xbox, printer and laptop. All of the mentioned electrical items use lots of electricity which will account for larger bills if not turned off properly. If all seven of us are guilty of not switching electrical items off when finished, we will inevitably be paying a much higher cost in the future both economically and environmentally. Of course doing this on an individual level will have relatively no effect on the sustainability of my life, but as a team effort we can help to reduce our bill size and also the amount of fossil fuels needed to be burnt in order to create the energy in the first place.
Whilst doing my shopping at Asda, which is only a five minute walk away, I must deeply consider the implications of my actions. For example when picking food for snacks I must steer clear of crisps & chocolate and the usual 'junk food' and steer more towards the healthier fruits. This will ensure that I acquire sufficient vitamins for development and also to ensure that I can sustain a healthy and prosperous life. Another example is the 'ready made meals' which seem all so tempting. A chicken madras for £1 = excellent. However the implications of eating these types of meals on a regular basis will be severe in terms of my health. This would have devastating complications on my sporting life as I would struggle for energy as these meals don't always contain the vital nutrition required. Therefore I will cook pasta, rice or potatoes with at least two vegetables with a piece of meat usually in the form of sausages or beef mince. This way I am obtaining the vital nutrients needed to maintain a healthy life now and in many years time when I will need it most.
There is absolutely nothing preventing me from acquiring this lifestyle, apart from a little bit more expenditure per week as £1 for a readymade meal is hard to beat. However the nutrition simply isn't there so the extra bit of money spent per week is money well spent if you ask me!
