04041 Dormitory and Group Living

On one hand . . . You have the least amount of control over your shelter circumstances when you live in a dormitory.

But on the other hand . . . you will have a lighter ecological footprint in a dormitory than in most other living arrangements that are available to you.

Dormitory rooms are small. Even when the common areas are added in, the square feet per person will be low by modern standards.

The school will certainly have invested in some energy conservation measures since the operating costs of residential housing are a major factor in school budgets.

Small spaces lead to less energy costs per person.

Students living in dormitories eat in cafeterias where managers buy food in bulk (less packaging cost) and prepare it in bulk (more efficient energy cost).

Less energy equals fewer carbon emissions and a more sustainable system.

While this varies from school to school and from facility to facility, about 10% of the rent dollars students pay goes toward paying energy bills. Additional expenses are caused by behavior-related repairs and maintenance. This is an issue for sustainability because repair and maintenance involves materials, which embody energy in their manufacture and distribution, and energy.

Dormitory living provides excellent opportunities for developing community skills. Universities like to foster unity and solidarity among their campus communities, and a lot of that work goes on in the dormitories and other forms of on-campus residence housing.

The primary way that students can reduce their ecological footprint while living in campus housing is by fostering changes in personal behavior. Particular areas of attention include –

Lighting discipline. Our grandfathers were right. When you leave the room, turn off the lights. Don’t illuminate empty rooms. Use LED task lighting instead of overhead lighting.

Thermostat. If you have an in-room thermostat, in the winter turn it down when you leave, and in the summer, turn it up. Don’t air condition or heat an empty room.

Curb your vampire loads. Turn off the lights and look around your room and note the glowing lights that and then do something about them. Plug televisions and other equipment into electric outlet strips with on-off switches, and use the on-off switch to make sure no ghost loads are being drawn by items in your room. Don’t leave your computer and printer on 24/7. Power down anything that is not in use!

Create an atmosphere of respect toward campus property. Don’t trash property, on or off campus. Deliberate damage and vandalism, as well as ordinary and heavy use, causes the expenditure of both money and resources in making repairs. This drives up the costs of campus housing and contributes to greenhouse gases and other ecological damage.

Drive less. Walk, ride a bicycle, take public transit, carpool more.

If a road trip beckons, take the bus or train instead.

Don’t waste food in the cafeteria. Take only what you can eat. Even if you are famished and starving, take conservative portions first time around. If you are still hungry after eating your first plate, have a second, Don’t pile a plate high and eat only part of it, throwing the rest away. Hint: if your cafeteria offers trays, don’t take one. Eat with the season.

Don’t waste water. Take short showers. Don’t run the water while you brush your teeth, clean your contacts, or shave.

Buy used text books. Or share text books or use e-books. You’ll pay less and damage the environment less.

Shop the after-market to decorate your room. Don’t buy a bunch of new stuff that you will be tired of and want to replace next year. Buy used, save money, reduce your ecological impact.

If you need small batteries, use rechargeable batteries and solar small battery chargers.

No bottled water! Instead, use a metal water bottle or a water fountain to satisfy your thirst when you are on the go. If your city’s tap water taste isn’t to your liking, buy a tabletop pitcher water filter.

No air freshner sprays or plugins! Make sure stinky messes don’t accumulate and use plants to clean the air.

If you use Christmas lights as decorations, get low-energy LED lights.

If you use candles, get soy or beeswax candles instead of paraffin candles. Paraffin is a hydrocarbon product. Soy candles are made from soybeans, a renewable product.

Wash your clothes in cold water. Air dry your clothes (hang them up in your dorm room to dry). Ask your building administration to install clothes lines.

Buy from locally owned stores, avoid franchises and chain stores. Don’t eat at national chains or franchised fast food, choose to support the locally owned fast food restaurants.

Take reusable bags with you with you go shopping.

Other Forms of Group Living

Besides dormitories on campus, another popular form of group living for students is the casual roommate relationship. By adding more residents, the fixed environmental and financial costs of a dwelling are divided between more people and that’s good.

The critical requirement for successful group living is an agreement that spells out the responsibilities and rights of all concerned. Never try to run a roommate relationship on a handshake and verbal understanding. People forget, they misunderstand, they sometimes take advantage of vague issues. It doesn’t have to be a fancy agreement. A list that spells out what’s the rights and responsibilities for the house, signed by all concerned, is good enough. Write it out, date, and sign it!

Managing the housework is an essential aspect of successful management of roommate relations. This should be part of the written household community agreement.

Invisible Structure Issues for Dormitory Living

Helping your school to transition to a more permaculture way of dormitory life is one of the functions stacked on the “organizing a campus permaculture group” suggestion. When it comes to dormitories, students can win points with campus administrators by organizing and implementing campus information campaigns that encourage students to –

• Use less water,
• Use less electricity,
• Don’t waste cafeteria food,
• Take better care of campus properties.

A campaign like this can have a measurable impact on the expenses of operating your campus and its consequent ecological footprint. By beginning with such a campaign, you will win friends and influence people in your campus administration. This may come in handy as you develop other “more advanced” ideas for your campus such as edible landscaping, biogas digesters, rainwater harvesting, and other projects that will move you toward a campus that cares for people, cares for the planet, and has a care for the future.

Low Impact Small Space Kitchen

Depending on your situation, you may need to contrive a small kitchen for your living space. Here’s a minimal kitchen that can prepare great food:

• Toaster oven
• Crockpot
• Hot plate

These additional items will be helpful:

• Pressure cooker
• Heating coil (a small device used to heat a cup of water to make tea, coffee, etc.)
• One cup coffee drip filter (if you are a coffee drinker)
• Microwave oven (depending on how you feel about microwaves)

If you don’t have a sink, you need a basin to wash dishes in. Empty the water outside on the landscaping. This should probably be done surreptitiously as there may be rules against it. Always select a different place to do your guerrilla grey watering. Instead of carrying the whole basin outside, drain it into a jug and take that out with you. That way you could put the jug in a paper bag and no one would know what you are taking out of the dormitory. A funnel will be helpful for this purpose.

I don’t advocate mindless disobedience to rules. I do advocate selective, mindful, peaceful, and nonviolent disobedience to rules and laws that drive us toward unsustainability and collapse. Often, the best way to do this is to not announce your plans but to simply do it, quietly and secretly. I know we all have the urge to immediately update our Facebook when we do stuff. There are some things that should not be blogged, statused or tweeted.

Regarding greywater in particular, as we will see when we get to the section on water . . . there is not one single documented case of anyone getting sick from the discharge of greywater into a landscape environment. Laws and rules against the use of greywater on landscape plants rise out of ignorance and are structures that drive us toward collapse.

In Conclusion . . .

Before acquiring iPermie, you probably lived your green life in the future. You figured that as long as you are in college, living in a dormitory, there isn’t much that you can do. As we have seen, this is simply not true. There is a lot that you can do, for yourself and your own lifestyle, and for your educational community. The assignment? Just Do it! It’s not complicated. It’s not rocket science. It’s pretty basic. It must be done, if we plan to care for people, care for the planet, and have a care for the future.