March - newsletter n°1

​How to be sustainable in Lausanne?

  • Recycling : In Switzerland, the trash bags are costly : 2.- per bag ! This initiative has been implemented to encourage people to sort their trash and recycle more. Many ecopoints are spread around the city where you can bring at no charge plastic (only PET), paper & cardboard, aluminum, tin cans and batteries. 
  • Food : Meat is so expensive here and very polluting. Reducing your meat consumption to two steaks per week will lower your carbon footprint by 4 to 5% and save you a lot of pennies. You can substitute meat with high-protein food such as lentils, quinoa, soy or nuts. 

Plenty of tasty vegetarian recipes exist and just wait to be discovered, we will suggest a few of those every month so that you can try them out!

Reducing the food waste is also a challenge. The app Too Good To Go resells unsold food at a reduced price in different shops, such as restaurants and bakeries, including some of EPFL restaurants. 

Want to go further ? More and more bulk shops are opening in Lausanne such as La Brouette, Chez Mamie and Sème ta Graine allowing you to decrease your packaging waste. 

  • Water : We have huge mountains and it provides us with a quantity of fresh and clean water. Hence, the tap water is tasty, crystal clear and of high quality. Our advice is to avoid using plastic bottles by buying a reusable bottle that you will fill  and use anytime you need, anywhere you need.
  • Buy second hand : You can visit those shops among many if you aim to get second hand furniture and clothes : Gloryland, Armée du Salut and Terre des Hommes. If you prefer online second hand shopping, we recommend ricardo.ch and anibis.ch

 

Sustainable Quiz  

Test your knowledge about sustainability with the following quiz made by students in Energy Technology : https://www.quiz-maker.com/QRHD0KN

Recipes

Food is an important part of our carbon emissions. In this newsletter we propose a few recipes, all vegan and seasonal. You might even want to try our Carrot peel spread recipe, made out of carrot peels, a good zero-waste opportunity.

Try them out : https://epfl.esn.ch/recipes

 

Sustainable events of this month

March 2-6: Sustainability week: https://www.facebook.com/SemaineDurableUnilEpfl/

March 10 7:30 : Castor Freegan: https://www.facebook.com/castorfreegan/

March 18 6 :30 pm: ESN Event | Do It Yourself

March 24 7:30 pm: Castor freegan https://www.facebook.com/events/601648064016539/

March 26 6:30 pm: Campus Lecture | Rob Greenfield Presents: Be The Change: https://www.facebook.com/events/501039220601882/

 

Challenges of the month 

Challenge n°1: Avoid tumble dryer

Did you know? 

The tumble dryer is one of the most energy-consuming home appliances (160-560 kWh vs up to 200/250 kWh for your fridge, dishwasher and washing machine!) 

Since it’s one of the less essential devices, one of the ESN challenges of the month is to avoid using it for a month. 

It’s quite simple to meet this challenge: drying racks and stretched wires are your friends! 

Challenge n°2 : Use a green search engine

This challenge takes a few clicks to set up : it consists in changing your search engine from the classical Google to a different one that does not make profit from your data in order by showing targeted ads, but instead supports sustainable projects :)  

Two search engines are quite popular : 

  • Ecosia  (https://www.ecosia.org/) uses the funds generated by your searches to plant trees around the world. This search engine also values your privacy. 

  • Lilo (https://www.lilo.org/fr/) where your searches generate a “drop”, that you can distribute to NGOs and projects as you see fit (Greenpeace, SPA, Sea Shepherd, I Boycott, etc...) 

Your challenge of the month, if you accept to do so, is to change your search engine on your computer for one of those two that we suggest. Don’t worry, it still works fine for your searches, and you can still go back to Google if you need a very specific information 
 

Challenge n°3 : Try out one of our recipes!

This last challenge of the month is rather simple! Have fun trying out one of the recipes we suggest in the above section.