Hi guys! Welcome back to my blog. This week, I investigated the impact of COVID-19 on our daily lives! 

I currently reside in one of the seven halls of NUS and since moving in, I couldn’t help but notice how takeaways are the norm here. I wondered if this was a regular practice in Hall culture or was it just a COVID-19 thing. And if it were due to COVID-19, has the pandemic really increased our takeaway habits and thus increased waste production? To answer these questions, I conducted a survey with some of my friends living on campus to really get a sense of the situation.

23 respondents currently live on campus. Of these, 10 respondents lived on campus last semester.

Before COVID-19 only 20% of these 10 respondents had takeaways for lunch most of or all of the time. (To note, NUS Halls and residences do not provide lunch services.)

 

However, in our current COVID times, this percentage doubled.

 

 

When asked about dinner, which is provided in the dining halls of residences, the change was more significant.
Previously, none of the respondents had their dinner as takeaways most of or all of the time. 

 

 

 

This however has changed. Now, half of our respondents take away dinner most of or every time!

 

An increase in takeaway frequency for both lunch and dinner can be seen from these results. I asked some of my seniors and fellow residents why they thought this was the case. Most of them expressed that the capacity limit and zoning restrictions (and thus reduced seating) in the dining hall have caused them to take away dinner using the supplied disposable boxes rather than wait around for a seat. Some also said that it’s also way easier and more convenient to take away dinner now as the hall now supplies disposable take away boxes whilst previously residents could only take away dinner if they brought their own reusable lunch boxes.

And now, we have our current residents who did not stay on campus last semester. The change for this group was even greater.

12 of our respondents said they only had food taken away moderately or didn’t take away food at all.

Currently, this has changed quite a bit. 8 of our respondents now take away food most of or all the time when previously only 1 respondent did as such. 

And all 5 respondents who didn’t take away food much increased their takeaway frequencies.

This was an interesting result to see. I have observed many of my peers having takeaway meals but I didn’t realise that the increase in frequency of doing so was that significant. 

This survey, despite how short and quick it was, was quite the eye opener for me. My observations and suspicions that COVID-19 has increased takeaway frequencies was confirmed. To my understanding, few of my peers actually use reusable boxes and many use the readily available disposable ones instead. Although this survey was small, if this trend is really true across all the halls and residences of NUS, the increase in waste production must be pretty great. And that’s quite a worrying thought. 

I also wondered why the halls would stop enforcing the rule of bringing your own reusable boxes. After thinking about it, I realised that the capacity and zoning restrictions in the dining hall has forced residents to take away our meals anyway and enforcing that rule would only incentivise residents to break the rules and dine in anyway (for example by adding chairs to the tables or sitting at tables designated to other zones). I guess this is just another example of the trade-off between environmental protection and trying to put a stop to COVID-19.

This post was a particularly interesting one for me. In most of my previous posts, I talked about broader issues that we as students may not see in our daily lives. But this post was one that I personally related to. I hope it was engaging for you as well!