“A woman should wear fragrance wherever she expects to be kissed”-Coco Chanel
Laura Reynolds looks at some of the cheapest beauty products available
I think I speak for all of us when I say thank goodness for that. Whether you’re a first year who can’t quite believe it’s been a year since you started already, a second year who’s vaguely horrified at the prospect of maybe having to find an actual job soon, or a third year, fourth year, post-grad – maybe even a member of staff, who knows - who’s been there and done that, holidays are always a welcome prospect.
Before you start packing your bags though, it might be an idea to look at how you could make your getaway a more eco-friendly one. That’s a holiday getaway, by the way – not the kind you get at the end of a bank robbery. Although I suppose you could always instigate the world’s first instance of heist by bike, if you’re that way inclined.
Anyway, there are various impacts for the environment when we all go off on holiday, and we should probably take that into account.
First of all, there’s getting there. Do you absolutely have to fly to get wherever you’re going? Travelling by plane has a massive impact on our carbon emissions, and it’s not always unavoidable. Take a holiday to Paris from London, for example. If you look at the amount of CO2 produced in the flight there and back, and consider the average number of passengers on the flight, then per person, the figure is around 244kg of CO2. On the other hand, getting there by Eurostar only creates 22kg of CO2 per passenger.
Travelling by train is far more environmentally friendly than getting there by plane. Equally, you could also go by ferry – the average CO2 emission per foot passenger on a return ferry trip between Dover to Calais is only 10kg.
Tourism is one of the industries having the biggest impact on our environment
Okay, so you’re going to have to get from Calais to Paris on your own, but our student population seems to be more than adept in the ways of hitch-hiking.
Once you get wherever you’re going, though, you’re not off the hook just yet. Tourism is one of the industries having the biggest impact on our environment, and not just in terms of how much travelling is involved. Even the world’s most idyllic natural areas and national parks are gradually being affected by how much rubbish we leave lying around. Mount Everest, for example, has become known as the ‘world’s highest garbage site’. A clean-up effort in 1998 shifted 1.2 tonnes of rubbish – including food packaging, oxygen tanks, and various other bits of rubbish that people dropped as they went along – and the problem hasn’t improved since then.
Admittedly, that’s a bit of an extreme example – I don’t know many people planning to conquer Everest over the summer – but you get the idea. When you’re on holiday, try to respect wherever you are. And since this is a very serious and common problem, I feel it needs reiterating: stop leaving your oxygen tanks lying around, people. Honestly.
Lastly, before you go anywhere, you could think about what delights you could sample in the UK.
Yes, it’s likely you’re not going to get stuck in a heat wave, but at the same time, a nice bit of sunshine in the Lake District is nothing to sneer at. Obviously, you’re less likely to meet a hot Italian for a quick fling by a scenic lake, but maybe you might meet a rugged Scotsman – or woman – on a week’s visit to the Highlands.
Okay, so maybe a rugged woman is less appealing. Oh well.
Even so, manly women in kilts or not, staying here could do a lot to help save the environment – you won’t even have to spend five hours on a plane with a toddler kicking the back of your seat.
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