Study: Singles Need TreeHugger Most
by Christine Lepisto, Berlin on 08. 6.06
Is your mission to have fun and live well--while being green? And are you living alone? A new study suggests that singles could make the biggest impact towards minimizing environmental footprints if their awareness could be raised and well-designed sustainable lifestyle products targeted to their needs. Well, actually, the study calls singles "a potential environmental time bomb". But if there's one thing the leaders at the forefront of the new eco and sustainability movement have learned, it is that you cannot terrify people into being green. Better to focus on the positive side of the message: "One-person households are now wealthier than ever and may be willing to put money into more environmentally-friendly homes and products".
The paper ‘Innovative solutions for averting a potential resource crisis – the case of one-person households in England and Wales', was led by Dr. Jo Williams of the University College of London, and published on 1st August online in the journal ‘Environment, Development and Sustainability’. Dr. Williams found that, for example, singles throw out 1600kg per head, compared with an average of 1000kg waste per capita in a four-person household. They consume 38% more products, generate 42% more packaging waste, use 55% more electricity and guzzle 61% more gas than each member in the traditional nuclear family. And this segment of the population is growing. The "environmental time bomb" thing comes into play when the consumption statistics face the demographic trend, which predicts that single homes will grow to 38% of households in the UK in 20 years. The German newspaper Die Zeit put things in a bit of perspective: "the demographic bomb has gone off--and nobody noticed!" Die Zeit references the German microcensus (link in German) which finds that single households hit 38% already in 2005- up 4% from 1991. So maybe it is too soon to panic.
But not too soon to get the message out to designers and singles alike. Dr. Williams' findings suggest that many living alone do so out of circumstances rather than choice. The study proposes expansion of the supply of living spaces designed for the single -- with some image amelioration through advertising to replace the usual dormitory or group-housing connotations with a mood of prestige and community. Furthermore, the study encourages a little government sponsored education, because the newly aware single will gladly dedicate some extra money to the choice of sustainable products. But you already know that: you are living proof. If you are living single, tell us your best tricks to avoid the single-serving waste trap in the comments.
Via tipster Christine Gautier and Die Zeit (German).
As a single person, I'm not sure that there are any special 'tips' for singles to have a lower impact.
I live in a small flat in an urban area, my gas and power bills are lower per capita than friends with suburban family homes, I don't drive a car, and I try to reduce my waste. Of course, my impact be lower if I shared the flat with someone, but it is very small and I'd probably buy a larger one were I in a couple.
Depending on how you cut the data, there are probably many 'groups' who have higher impact than others - people earning over the average wage, particular age groups, people living in particular postcodes. For any of them, the ways to reduce their impact are likely to be the same as they are for all of us.
It's wrong to equate "single" with "living alone": one can have a partner and live separately, or be single and flat with several others.
There are a couple of other definitional issues with the press release. Since it's a UK publication, I presume that by "gas" they mean natural or coal gas for cooking and heating, rather than petrol. Also, when they compare 1-person to 4-person households, by the latter do they mean "4 adults" or a family of 2 adults and 2 children? If it's the latter, then that might explain the difference.
I do agree, though, that there's a missing typology of residential building: compact, high-quality, inexpensive apartments for "solo livers" who don't need to spend a lot of time at home. For example, I lived for six months in an expensive 1-bedroom furnished apartment that was 50 sq m with a full kitchen, when all I needed was a small bedroom and bathroom. Breakfast was the only meal I ate at home, so my beautiful stainless-steel kitchen was pretty much wasted. My local Malyasian restaurant served hundreds of meals a day from a kitchen the same size: surely a much better use of resources. But since the only way to find a flat without a full kitchen was to live in a student hostel or a rundown bedsit, I was stuck with something much more extravagant than I needed.
One simple thing that could be done would be to provide perishable goods in sizes appropriate for singles. For example, I can only buy milk in 1-litre containers, so it inevitably expires before I can use half of it. Or perhaps the local convenience stores (funnily enough called "dairies" here) could sell milk on tap, so that you could fill your own resuable container and just buy what you need.
Kind of silly to make per person comparisons, as basically you'd be comparing the consumption of adults with small children in this study.
As a single person, living alone, I take exception to "One-person households are now wealthier than ever and may be willing to put money into more environmentally-friendly homes and products" - because I'm already paying over the odds for the environmentaly unfriendly options.
The reason why single people cause so much extra waste per head is because everything, except for microwavable meals, is packaged and sold for multiperson households. For example, if "I feel like chicken tonight", I can either be eating leftovers for the next couple days (with the associated energy costs of freezing and reheating) or I can throw out most of what I've cooked (so more for the landfill). Any way you look at it, I'm wasting money, or food or resources, and there is nothing I can do about it, because products designed for single people just don't exist, and I hate being "singled out" as an environmental "time bomb" over something I have no control over.
"One-person households are now wealthier than ever and may be willing to put money into more environmentally-friendly homes and products" line is wrong, because if products were designed for us in the first place it would cost us less.
maybe it is more defined in the study, but single-occupancy treehuggers i assume consume far less than single occupancy yuppies, or middle-or-the-road suburban fmailies... i too, no car, public transport, lower electricicty bills, water saving devices & low lighting EVERYWHERE, moderatley low on the food chain, oh and a passion for retro clothes.. so what exacly would i be doing so mych worse than a suburban family; 2 cars 4000sqft to heat, frozen foods, soooooooo much garbage... meh, i guess if you are stacking up single dweller Treehugger vs. treehugger family in the woods, or single dweller yuppy vs. affluent family in the burbs, then maybe it does stack up, but as it stands, I still wonder if a single dweller (nonTH) could possibly consume as much as a non-TH family (I remeber hearing on population issues, one north american kid consumes the same as 20 kids in brazil or 40 kids in somalia... thats one kid)
Regardless of how green your lifestyle is, there are some inherently wasteful things about living single. It comes with an inability to share.
For example, it costs the same to cool my apartment in the summer whether it's just me, or if I have a roommate. So, X kilowatt hours to cool one person's home, or the same amount to cool two? When in the store, will I buy a 4-pack of toilet paper, or a 24-pack? As a single, I'd buy the smaller pack, which means more discarded packaging per roll.
Living alone is fabulous and liberating, but there are some un-green (brown?) aspects to it.
That being said, I think that if you factor in the commute of John Q. Family suburban-dweller, the playing field would level.
My sister's family of 4 lives on the suburban/rural line - sure, they produce less packaging waste per person, because they can buy in bulk and share, but her husband drives 30 miles each way to work. Sure, I'm single, but I have a roommate and my commute is 2.7 miles.
This study is just a reminder that regardless how green we think we're living - there's always something better.
I too think that I waste less than most. I probably create less waste than the average male my age, wether they live alone or part of a family group. Here are some of my green lifestyle tips.
1) The only paper products I buy is toilet paper, and that is a brand with 70% recycled post consumer content.
2) I tend to buy family packs of things like meat and the small amount of prepared food I do buy. When I get home I seperate it into individual portions and place in plastic bags which I wash and reuse for as long as possible.
3) I haven't taken a plastic or paper bag from a store in years. I either carry my own canvas bags or do with out. Older checkout ladies sometimes insist on putting things in bags. drives me nuts.
4)I don't own a car, I do however have too many bicycles.
5) I buy a very low percentage of packaged processed foods. Things I but in cans are tuna and cat food. Things in plastic bags are beans, rice and pasta. Things that come in boxes, can't think of any except some pastas.
6) I rarely run My window AC. When i do it is for the room it is in, my bedroom. I have windows in my apartment that have not been closed in months and I draw the blinds on windows facing the sun in the afternoon to block heat buildup.
My waste products after recycling are low enough that I can skip the weekly garbage pickup if I want, my can is much smaller than my neighbors but never more than 1/2 full. It does go out every week just to keep the stink down.
One solution I've seen for the "single serving problem" is a program called Community Kitchen. Groups of people get together once a month and make a bunch of different meals that they can keep in the freezer and reheat. You buy all the groceries in bulk, and do all the preparing just once a month, so you get the savings on money and time of cooking for a larger household even if you're single. Best of all you get to know a group of people in the process. The Calgary version of the program has a website http://www.communitykitchenprogram.com/
I think they have one in Vancouver too.
Are you kidding me? When my husband left my waste went down by more then %50. I dumped my oversized two bedroom apartment. (He didn't want to move) for a small single bedroom place. I have electric heat instead of natural gas. I had cfl's allready installed before I came NICE. I use the dishwasher maybe twice a week verses twice per day.
I don't have a car . I am buying a bike because this place is 1/2 mile to anywhere. I waste 0% of the food I buy. He wasted God knows how much.I am quitting pop and going to podered flavored drinks. NO CANS OR BOTTLES.
I am drinking powdered milk. No milk bottles and no need for fridge to keep extra cool.I am growing herbs. Veggies have to wait until next year but I'll definitele be making use of my deck.
My A.C. Is low to the floor and blows straight through to the bedroom, saving money on the use of a fan to cool me in the summer( my old place had a wall between the bedrooms and the A.C.). Just turn it off and I'll be cool at night. I live on the third floor so I get all the heat rising from the first two.( I used to live in a duplex)
My cat is indoors unless he's on a leash which means I don't have problems with fleas etc.I had to do laundery twice per week with him. Now I do it twice per month and my apartment has a front loading machine so theres big time savings there.
Cost more to the environment than with two? I just don't see it.