For the September Eco Hawks newsletter, intern Tara Slade talked with three international students at the University of Iowa about why sustainability is important to them. Here are their stories:

Meet Sneha Bhansali

Sneha is in her second year of the Ph.D. in Mathematics Education program at the University of Iowa. She came to the U.S. in August of 2014, prior to which she spent all her life in India.

I grew up in Pune in quite a progressive Jain family. My parents are not much into following the rituals and never forced me too. But at the same time it created a great impact on understanding the principles and philosophy at a deeper level. One of the main principles and the most important in Jainism is non-violence. Every act by which a person directly or indirectly supports killing or injury is seen as act of violence. Among the many food habits or rules, I saw my relatives avoiding multi-seeded fruits. The logic behind this is,consumption of multi-seeds fruits would lead to killing of many lives that would germinate from the seeds had they were sown. This made me think for alternatives, as I could not stop eating multi-seeded fruits and vegetables. I came up with the idea of saving the seeds from the fruits and vegetables that I consume, which I later used to disperse them rather than throwing them into the trash-bin. I think, in order to practice non-violence, one has to think about all the living things and the ecosystem that changes the lifestyle and the choices become environmentally conscious. And in my opinion, when we are aware about our choices and their impact on the environment, we do not really need to talk about environmental sustainability as a separate topic. 

The second important principle in Jainism is non-possessiveness, which also has influenced my lifestyle to a very great extent. This includes limiting one’s possessions and also one’s desires. The family practice of going to small vendors instead of supermarkets easily would cut off the unnecessary shopping. Every morning my mom sent me to a vegetable vendor to get vegetables for the day. Daily cooking, eating fresh and local food cuts down a good amount of plastics, packaging and also one-time use items. After moving to the US, I am still finding it hard to develop the habits of grocery shopping for two weeks. Consequently, I am buying more groceries than required, and cooking more food at a time and storing it in the refrigerator instead of having fresh food.

Along with the Jain philosophical atmosphere in my family, there were other factors that impacted my thoughts about environmental sustainability. I grew up in a city where space crunch is always a big issue. I did vermicomposting in the windowsill of our house in India and grew vegetables, herbs for tea and some flowers in the same tiny space. In my city, the city corporation provides different trash trucks for dry and wet garbage but I hardly remember any of the organic matter (fruit peels, vegetable stalks or any leftover food) going to the trash bin in last eight years. I believe decentralizing things is one of the keys towards sustainability. I have seen many collective efforts in India in this regard. We had a composting pit in my college where we students would compost the organic matter and maintain a small garden. Some people are also willing to share their yards or sometimes even the terraces for the same purposes. Sometimes people consciously avoid certain foods that are ecologically harmful. I have a friend who grew up in the Konkan region on western part of India, which is very popular for its mango production. On his visit to my house I offered him mangoes, but he kindly refused to accept them. I was shocked to know that he does not eat that species of mangoes because of the intensive usage of water and soil degradation caused due to its cultivation. He added that he does not eat ice cream, as it consumes a huge amount of energy in its production and storage.
 
I still remember my first shopping experience in Wal-Mart in the very first week of my stay in the US. I was taken aback with the over usage of plastic bags in grocery stores. Many stores in India would charge the customers for disposable bags they give for carrying the goods. There are many small things that I do and one can easily do such as carrying cloth bags or high quality plastic bags, which would last easily for two to three years. Along with plastic, I am also very sensitive towards paper usage or say paper wastage. A lot of resources such as trees, water, electricity, and human hours are invested in the process of paper making with many times polluting the water bodies. In India, I used to go to the recycler and buy one-sided papers instead of buying notebooks. I had a professor in my undergrad that allowed (or supported) me to use one-sided papers for all homework and assignments. Even here in the US, I dig into the Blue bins and very easily get a stack of one-sided papers.

My city Pune was well known as the city of bicycles. Of course, now the situation has changed drastically. But different groups of people come up with some initiatives like organizing bicycle rallies on Sundays or a ‘bike day’ when many people would try to use their bicycles or use public transportation and avoid private vehicles. Sometimes just living in a city would make oneself aware about the little difference between usage and consumption because of the scarcity of basic resources such as electricity, water, fuel, etc. It may sound weird but a large duration of the year will have water supply for only a couple of hours in morning and evening. Similarly many places face a daily power cut from a couple of hours to sometimes more than 12 hours, especially in a very hot summer.
 
As many people experience that traveling changes their lifestyle, I too realized some changes in me when I traveled for six months in Arunachal Pradesh, a North Eastern state of India where the population is largely tribal. I was living in the community in very small villages and volunteered for teaching students. I visited some families who would literally create zero waste and live a very healthy life. Everything including their houses, utensils, clothes would come from the nature around and would go back to the nature. Once, I was making tea in one house and I could not find a tea strainer. I did not know how to serve the tea that I had made and the house owner came and showed her skill of pouring the tea in the cups without using any strainer. I kept pondering how many things I am dependent on for my survival. I started questioning myself as to why we call this part of the society as uncivilized. The tribal life and traveling had taught me that living as a minimalist is definitely possible and is certainly an enriching experience. I am looking forward to meet great people and get life inspiring experiences during my stay at the University of Iowa.

Meet Akash Bhalerao 

Akash is an undergrad student at Iowa (who's also from Pune, India). You might see him in one of your classes, at an UI Environmental Coalition  meeting or Gardeners meeting, or any variety of sustainability events on campus. He founded and heads a business called EcoFriends.

EcoFriends is a non-profit organization that works for environmental conservation and ecosystem restoration in India. I founded it in 2009. Our mission statement is: “EcoFriends aims at establishing a sustainable future for the planet by means of environmental conservation and ecosystem restoration by encouraging the local and global communities to adapt to Eco-friendly lifestyles and practices by means of leadership development and women and youth empowerment.”

EcoFriends originated in Pune city (my home town). We do the job of: involving the community!

When we talk about environmentalism, people and the environment are often considered different entities, however humans are a part of the environment and the environmental cause is an important one. We all are divided by nationalities and religions, and genders and beliefs, however the thing we all have in common is that we all are human beings and our environment impacts on us. Or in fact we impact it in a greater way. 

Although it's a global cause, the best way to deal with it is at the grassroots level and by involving local communities for restoring damaged ecosystems, protecting the standing ones and adapting to ecofriendly life styles. We can succeed in preventing major damages to humanity and other species and protecting our planet by switching to renewable resources for our energy, by buying eco-friendly goods, practicing local organic farming practices, restoring the ecosystems that we have destroyed and basically educating communities about the same. 

It is a major global challenge that the world faces today, and people need to realize that "The Environment is Everyone's Business."

Meet Mingjian Li

Mingjian is an undergrad student at the University of Iowa. He is from Jinan the "City of Springs" in Eastern China, and he is studying math and finance. Mingjian's also an resident assistaint at Currier Hall and a senator for the UI Student Government.

Since I was young, I was taught to save resources. For example, my first grade teacher told me turn off the lights and AC if no one was in the room. I was also taught that in order to avoid food waste, we should take less food twice rather than take too much food once.

Overall, most people in China have not realized how and why sustainability is important, because when they grew up, no one taught them about sustainability. They did not face the environmental issues as young generation nowadays. The old generation were concerned more about making a living. Therefore, the recycle bin is handled as normal trash bin. However, the situation is changing, because the young generation were taught how important of sustainability when they were younger.

The Chinese government has taken a lot of actions to solve industrial pollution. They closed a lot of factories when they felt it was necessary, for example, during the APCE summit, the Chinese government closed almost all factories near Beijing in order to make sure the sky could be blue.

In Jinan, public transportation is more common than in any place I have been to in the US, part of the reason could be we have so many people so we have a considerable demand for public transportation. Also, my country has a huge traffic congestion so that people could save time if they choose alternative transportation.

When I was a freshman, I joined Recyclemania and I was the only business major student in there. I experienced most of the activities and observed the attitude of American for sustainability. I felt that students are more easily persuaded than adults.

The resources in the US are much more sufficient than the resources most countries in the world have. Therefore, Americans may feel less the urgency of saving food or energy. It is hard to change people’s mind in the current situation unless the outside situation changes. For example, residents of California will appreciate water more than other parts of US. 

I feel it’s urgent for us to act on environmental issues. It is not an option whether we want to. It’s the issue for our future life. The earth could not support so many people by current consumption rate. If we do not change, we will die out.