The Green Rangers

June 15 marks the launch of National Clean Air Day and the sustainability team held an open air mindfulness session that was a nice break from the stress of work. Taking 30 minutes of your time to focus your attention inwards was a nice retreat from the demands of the outside world.

Make a pledge on how you can reduce your air pollution - whether it's walking or cycling instead of taking the bus, turning off your engine when idle, or even just raising awareness. Every little thing you do can make a big difference.


Joey and I really enjoyed the meditation and will definitely be looking out for similar events!

Last week I returned from holiday to discover I’d won a fruit diffusing water bottle, a very good start back! I was lucky enough to be chosen as a winner of the London Met Water Month Quiz. I’m still not entirely sure of the correct answer to the question 'How many toilets are there are in the Holloway building?' But it turns out my guess must have been close enough! To say I was excited was an understatement (as you can see in the pic above). I have many fruit / water combinations in mind.

It’s great to see the University making such a positive contribution by drawing attention to and changing attitudes towards green issues. Using a reusable water bottle may sound like a small thing, but it’s these little things that will untimely go on to change our planet. It matters because the average UK households use 480 plastic bottles on average every year, and only 270 of them are recycled, meaning 44% are not!*

Thinking about recycling, the launch of the London Met Travel Cups is another thing the Green Rangers are really excited about at the moment. You can buy in campus from Costa and Starbucks Outlets - Moorgate, Blue Met and Learning Centre for a very reasonable £3.50 each. We love them because they mean we can use less paper coffee cups and make a positive contribution to reducing paper waste. Using them also means we get 30p off on all hot drinks, who says going good doesn’t pay!

 *RecycleNow

Ambreen

We visited the Sustainability Team's water stall at The Junction on Tuesday where we took part in a quiz, got some freebies, and made a pledge to save water!

I pledged to finally buy a water butt for the garden. It'll collect rain water from the gutter and store it ready for when I need to water the garden in the summer months. Did you know, a massive 30,000 million litres of water can be saved if every house in the UK used a water butt!

Karl pledged to use the free four-minute shower timer. The Energy Saving Trust have calculated a saving of around £30 in energy and water bills, just by knocking off a minute of your shower time!
What do you pledge to do to save water?

Kara

The University's Costa (Blue Met) now collects coffee grounds for anyone who needs a hit of nitrogen for their compost. I made use of this service and requested a bag to take home - all 14kg of it! It'll do wonders for the veg I'll be growing in March!

Composting reduces the amount of food waste that ends up at the landfill, giving your soil the nutrients and microorganisms it craves. You'll see a huge difference compost makes to your plants - and even better - it's completely free!

Organic (Green) materials such as fruit and vegetable scraps, crushed egg shells and coffee grounds increases the amount of nitrogen in your compost, and brown materials such as leaves, paper and hay increases the amount of carbon. You should aim for a balance of green and brown materials. More tips on what and how to compost can be found on the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) website.

Check with your local council to see if they offer subsidies for compost bins for home composting.

Above: Image of the compost bin in my garden

If you want to grab yourself a bag of coffee grounds, email catering@londonmet.ac.uk.

Kara