Join us from November 27 until December 4, 2018 in promoting for our campaign ‘Say “No” to plastic.’
Learn Interesting facts and advocate against the use of plastic in our community.
Here are a few examples of concrete simple actions you can do everyday:
- bring a reusable bag at Tamimi
- when you pick-up your food at the restaurants, refuse straws and plastic cutlery
- carry your own food container and a set of utensils
- don’t put your veggies and fruit in plastic bags at Tamimi
- try to reduce the amount of packaging your consume
You have other ideas? Write a comment below and share it with the community.
Visit our plastic artwork displays located at Discovery square, Building 16 and Tamimi Supermarket and grab a re-usable bag.
18 Comment
take your own mug to the coffee shops 🙂
Use the “normal” plates and utensils at catered events. Refrain from using the plastic plates, knives, spoons and forks.
Carry your water bottle and fill it up at the many stations on campus. Don’t buy plastic water bottles as they are bad for the environment.
The restaurants (Pure, Harbor, etc) should stop automatically putting straws in your drink. If you want a straw, ask for one. Sometimes I forget to tell them I don’t want a straw and it’s very wasteful.
Totally agree with you, Katie.
I started to “O waste”, I disposed of the plastic like tamimi bags for fruits. I use a reusable bag for my shopping.
I don’t use film plastic and plastic box for my food, I use glass box and be wrap.
I don’t use shampoo bottle, I use solid shampoo (it’s like a soap but for hair) and solid soap. I bought toothbrush where we change only the head.
It’s my contribution to preserving the planet ! 🙂
Don’t buy bottled water – full stop. If you don’t like the tap water as it flows from the tap, let it stand for a few hours, and then try drinking it again: you will notice a big difference in taste. Same thing happens when you cool tap water in a glass bottle in the fridge.
may be we should try this edible cutlery!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjUzGR2aOLw
It is affordable and could save the wastage of plastic spoons in travel and outside home!
Sadly Bakeys has a bad reputation now.
Bakeys was founded by Narayana Peesapathy in 2010 in Hyderabad. In April 2016, it earned a crowd-funding of around US$35,000 from 1500+ backers through Ketto with its initial goal being only US$1,400. Following this support, the company started a Kickstarter campaign to increase its reach. As of May 2017 the company had not yet started shipping to backers of the Kickstarter, though shipments of the spoons to customers in India, has been proceeding without issue. Many Kickstarter backers are currently attempting legal action against Bakeys due to no response after pledging over $250,000 in US dollars.
Oh that’s such a shame. Thank you for the update, Floris.
Very inspiring Srinidhi. Thank you for sharing.
Try using bar soap instead of a liquid soap. There are shampoos and conditioners in the bar forms too so you save on the plastic packaging.
I think this is a great idea, and something my family has been working towards recently. Here are a few things we’ve done:
-Carry a water bottle and/or coffee cup everywhere
-Reusable bags aren’t just for the checkout counter or even your fruits and veggies. We use them for the nuts section at the back of the store, and you can use them for more bulk items at the Fruit and Veggie store. We have a cloth set we try to use for as much as possible.
-We replaced bodywash with bar soap because there is much less plastic packaging
-At home, leftovers are put in reusable containers rather than plastic bags or disposable containers
-Carry metal straws
-Moved to cloth napkins at home
-Bought/made more concentrated cleaning items we think are better and use less packaging
It would be great if KAUST could help us create an atmosphere more supportive of zero/minimal waste options.
Overall, I’d love to see more options at KAUST that are plastic free or more eco-friendly. It would take some shift in shopping, but getting rid of the extra plastic, cling wrap, and styrofoam (or at least have the option of getting it without that waste) on things like meat from the butcher, the deli, eggs, and even some of the fruits and veggies would be a great step, too. A lot of that extra packaging can probably be avoided if we think through it.
Plastics across KAUST could be items we request rather than items that are automatically included. Things like straws, takeaway plasticware, and even plastic bags at Tamimi could still be available when someone wants or needs them, but I think people – myself included – would generally be a lot more apt to pass on them if they’re not just handed out. For takeout, maybe the restaurants could even have signs encouraging people to bring their own storage containers? Also, restaurants that already utilize laundry services because of tablecloths could look at using cloth napkins instead of of papery-plastic ones.
I’d also love to see more bulk buy options though where we can use our own bags/containers. It’d be great to see this expanded to other items like lentils, beans, spices, granolas, and even things like meat, and eggs.
I also like the idea of solid shampoo like someone mentioned above, but I haven’t seen that on campus. Maybe KAUST and Tamimi could work together to try and source sustainable options across the board for food, health & Beauty items, etc.?
This is a good initiative, and I hope we can come up with more ideas to help support each other.
Install one filter of water at home and don’t buy bottled water. I have one small and pretty one attached to my tap, it doesn’t need installation. It’s an active carbon filter, removes the contamination but the minerals remain, also the taste of water is good. If someone is interested a I can show it.
We have a Berkey water filter. And like Erica we would be happy to show it to people who might be interested in acquiring one.
It will be difficult to re-educate a community that’s used to commodity. I think a “rewards system” could be a good idea. People like winning things, so like a card or something that gets a seal every time you go, specially in the coffee shops, and eventually you get like a free coffee. I’ve tried to get people around me to stop with the plastic bags and the coffee mugs, but convenience (because having two hands is not enough, apparently) wins every time.
I agree that the community needs to make these changes and encouraging them to do so is great. But the vendors that are contracted to serve our needs should also be held to these suggestions and standards. The amount of plastic wasted individually wrapping produce, restaurants around campus refusing to provide tap water instead of bottled, and as many have pointed out automatically providing straws, does not contribute to a plastic free community. If we are not automatically given extra plastics, but must actively request it, our awareness of our plastic consumption will most likely increase.
I would like to suggest few options to reduce plastic usage
1) STOP giving free plastic bags at Tamimi or anyother store and Restaurants.
2) STOP providing free Bottled water in any events such as seminar, workshop, other community programs.
3) When new employee joins the KAUSt give him/her Coffee mug and Reusable Water bottle, re-usable bag.
4) Give discounts to customer who carry there own mug to coffee house.
5) Increase number of water refill stations.