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This year World Habitat Day was formally observed and celebrated at the Shanghai World Expo 2010, with the chosen theme aptly named “Better City, Better Life”.

The Issue

Half of the world’s population now live in urban environments (UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, 2009). This puts great pressure on cities and their resources particularly for the marginalised people living in urban environments. Health and housing are key issues highlighted in this year’s “Better City Better Life” theme.

Being a born and bred African and having lived in both Cape Town and Harare and visited Johannesburg frequently, this issue is blindingly obvious in all three cities. Cape Town, Harare and Johannesburg do not face this problem alone; there are numerous developing countries around the world that face these issues each and every day. You may think, “So what, It’s a big task to tackle, what am I ALONE supposed to do!?”

Well, this year’s theme pushes the vision of a sustainable urban world – We at The Better Trading Company try as best we can to live this vision in our various projects as well as in our personal lives. So I thought I would just take a few minutes of your time to make a few fairly simple suggestions on how easy (yes, living sustainably doesn’t have to be difficult) it can be to start “greening” your life – and yes I engage in the practices below myself. If every person makes an effort to be less wasteful and recycle more it can only be a BETTER way of living!

Sustainable Living

For example – for us Africans in particular – most of us have gardens of some sort – so why not add to your garden while recycling i.e. – start a compost heap or a worm farm (vermiculture). Both of these are very simple ways of recycling food that most households waste during meal times – just about anything can go into a worm farm or a compost heap and a bonus is you create organic fertiliser without the packaging or extra carbon emissions attached.

Water is a huge issue in most cities and unfortunately, although we don’t admit it, we all waste one of Earth’s most precious gifts to us all the time. The UN suggests that each person needs daily for basic needs (drinking, cooking and cleaning) 20 – 50 litres of safe freshwater. Do you leave the tap on while brushing your teeth? This can use between 3.75 and 7.5 litres of water – a large proportion of the suggested daily allowance – so why do we do it?

More than one in six people worldwide - 894 million - don't have access to the UN suggestion of safe freshwater needed daily.

So a couple of water saving tips to contribute to more sustainable cities – do not leave the tap running unnecessarily– turn it off, or perhaps fill a glass and use that instead. Flushing your toilet, a luxury for many people living in developing nations, can use between 19 to 26 litres PER FLUSH; a way of reducing this water use is by putting a brick in the cistern –simple and cheap, yet effective.

As the Better Trading Company, most of the projects we are engaged in are of an agricultural basis, but this does not mean we do not do our very best at every possible opportunity to be sustainable and to assist our farmers in being sustainable - the theme of World Habitat Day this year highlights the essence of what we stand for “Better City, Better Life”. We encourage the use of organic products wherever we can, our farmers are also taught better farming practices, such as conservation tillage and the proper use of water resources. Take a look at the website and see for yourself!

A very interesting way of computing your “footprint” on the world is by using the Carbon Footprint Calculator – this way you can figure out approximately how much of the Earth’s resources you personally use. There are so many small and simple ways that one can contribute towards this year’s World Habitat Day theme of “Better City Better Life” and hopefully this little bit of information here will spur you on in the right direction, so get going ....figure out your carbon footprint, make a few simple changes in your life and then measure your footprint again in a year - good luck!

For more information the following websites provide interesting information:
UN Water
UN Habitat

Posted by Jenna Van Niekerk (October 2010)