Submitted by Grainne Kennedy on Wed, 2018-11-28 08:46
When you meet someone for the first time, it is quite nice to discover that you have something in common. For Phd students, Lucia Corsini and Francesca O’Hanlon one of the things they had in common when they met was a dislike of single-use plastic bottles. Both Lucia and Francesca had seen the devastation caused by these types of plastic; Lucia in her travels in Indonesia and Francesca in her time sailing with CU Yacht club. After seeing the harm that plastic does Lucia and Francesca wanted to do something practical to eliminate the need for at least some of the 10 billion bottles that it is estimated we use in the UK each year (3 billion of these are never recycled).
They began to consider alternatives to plastic bottles and were inspired by the actions of University of California, Berkeley, where the sale of plastic bottles has been banned. Closer to home they found the #OneLess Campaign from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL). #OneLess in London has been successful in getting members of the public to pledge to use a reusable bottle and they have worked with organisations to improve access to drinking water.
Lucia and Francesca approached ZSL and secured permission to use the #OneLess campaign in the city of Cambridge. #OneLess Cambridge was launched in February 2018 at the Cambridge Climate Change and Sustainability Forum. Since then, #OneLess Cambridge have reached many students and staff and asked them to take to #OneLess pledge, to move away from single-use plastic bottles. #OneLess Cambridge have worked also with the University Catering Service (UCS) in a collaboration through the ‘Living LaB. The UCS no longer sell drinks in plastic bottles.
The campaign had a strong presence at this year’s Freshers Fair and #OneLess Cambridge recruited a committee to expand their work (pictured Tamara Brian, Lucia Corsini, Joey Bream and Kaja Jåkonsen – missing from the picture are Stephanie Brown and Christina Rodriguez-Rivero).
If you would like to participate in this campaign go to the #OneLess Cambridge Facebook page @OnelessinCambridge and make your pledge. You can also follow us on twitter for more updates @OneLess_Cam.
If you are out and about bottles can be refilled in all University catering outlets and in local businesses that display this blue sticker. To find out the location of these businesses you can download the Refil app.
