Jeans, T-shirts, shoes, chocolate – we are buying and consuming many different products every single day. Hallbart Universitet, Lund’s green student organization, is offering a guided walk through Lund and tries to get more people thinking about sustainable consumption.
– The production of one pair of jeans requires 40.000 liters of water. Can you imagine how many bath tubs this is?!
Silence is following the question asked by Flavia Cardenas, member of Hallbart Universitet and guide on the sustainable walk. Some faces next to me look astonished, some knowing and some seem to be already calculating the quantity of bath tubs in their minds.
It is a sunny afternoon in Lund and a little crowd of students is gathered around Flavia Cardenas, Annika Hagberg and Julia Hoffmann, the three representatives of Hallbart Universitet.
Everybody came to participate in the “sustainable walk”, a walk which differs from normal guided city tours in so far that it focuses especially on the environmental friendly side of Lund.
– We try to show students where to buy fair-trade and ecological products, where to find good places to get second-hand clothes, explains Annika.
Julia adds.
– Real life is all about compromises and being pragmatic. Of course it is difficult to buy everything fair trade. But even the fact that H&M is having clothes now which are made from ecological cotton is a step into the right direction.
Following our three guides during the next two hours, we get to know more about sustainable consumption, flea markets in Lund, recycling and so called “magic rooms” which are the rooms in the student housing buildings where everybody can grab and leave used furniture and electronic devices for free.
The information on sustainability is well explained and the air is fresh so it is not astonishing at all that everybody seems very happy that the tour ends with a traditional Swedish Fika at a fair trade shop. And while having coffee and enjoying some delicious sweets everybody surrounding me starts chatting about the tour and personal experiences with sustainability.
– I have never been to anything similar before and I am glad to finally get to know some places where I can buy things that are less harmful to people and good to the environment at the same time, here in Lund, tells 20 year-old Ana from Ukraine next to me very happily.
Some others agree nodding and the overall tea-sipping and cookie eating atmosphere proves that everybody here is very confident with today’s sustainable walk.
