Kate Hall has good advice about getting everyone on the sustainability journey.
Living with flatmates is hard at the best of times, but when you add sustainability into the mix, it can get messy and toxic super quickly - I’ve been there. If your flatmates are already saying, ‘You’re not our mum,” then it’s important to quickly step back and take a different approach.
Your flatmates don’t want to be told what to do and it’s also not your place to tell them how to live. However, you can still be a more sustainable flat without being the “mum”.
If I were you, I’d start with clear communication. Arrange for a flat meeting. Apologise for being overbearing and acknowledge that your sustainable values are important to you. I’d stay clear of emotions and talk about the facts. Come to the meeting prepared with information such as how you can reduce your rubbish fees by composting, a pricing guide to a sustainable toilet paper subscription that gets delivered so no one has to remember to buy it and more practical ideas on how sustainable living can benefit your flatmates by offering convenience and cost savings. Ask them what ideas they have. Don’t make the conversation all about you.
Meet in the middle. Don’t expect them to jump into everything at once just because it makes sense to you and aligns with your personal values. Compromise. For example, this could look like them agreeing to you buying all the shared amenities (salt, pepper, cleaning products) from sustainable stores and dividing up the costs every month, but saying no to a worm farm. Take what you can get and broach the worm farm topic in the future.
