Life & Work with Sustainable Suburbs

Today we’d like to introduce you to Sustainable Suburbs.

Hi Sustainable, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Sustainable Suburbs is the epitome when two girls, Saanvi and Riya, come together and work for what they love. In our case, it’s the environment!

When we began Sustainable Suburbs, it was just our Substack, writing about important environmental facts that we thought people were unaware about. Light pollution, pollinator disappearances, and convoluted environmental practices. Soon, we started including articles about sustainable crafts and more informative posts about nuanced topics like green washing and plastics. We’ve continued to grow our love for learning, the environment, and the newspaper into a place where we can share facts and opinions from people all over the world, from ourselves and our fellow chapters.

One day, a few weeks after we started our junior year of high school, we decided to open our organization to the world and start chapters, specifically with the hope that there would be other people with the same love of the environment we hold. Slowly, from the suburbs of Illinois, our organization grew around the globe, all the way to Canada, India, and the Philippines. It warms our heart to see other, like-minded teenagers be so dedicated to the environment, especially in a time where sustainability is often an afterthought. We are endlessly proud of our chapters, those who have stuck with us and contributed real change.

One of the things that Sustainable Suburbs, at least our home branch, is known for are youth events. It began with our brothers begging to help, and now is a necessary pillar of our mission; we spend hours brainstorming, planning, and running our youth events. Mainstream media nowadays makes it seem like kids these days don’t like going outside, are negligent, and don’t care about the environment—but this is absolutely not true! It’s that they don’t have the means to anymore, or don’t understand what it means to help the Earth. It doesn’t take a grand gesture or a huge impact, but small habits we’ve helped these kids develop. From teaching them how to recycle to more complicated topics about how recycling impacts our environment, we’ve become dedicated to creating the next generation of environmentalists.

Our story is just beginning, and we hope to expand on our current endeavors in the future.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Although Sustainable Suburbs has come far, we’ve seen our fair share of setbacks.

The biggest obstacle that we’ve seen is the amount of distaste when it comes to caring about the environment. In today’s age, with amazing technological advances and serious global issues, the environment is often considered an afterthought. Studying environmental science is seen as an “easy” way out of difficult STEM fields, and refusing to utilize generative AI makes you seem inefficient and “falling behind.” And as two teenagers, the fear of what others think is constantly in the back of our minds.

However, we’ve realized that in order to ensure that both Sustainable Suburbs and ourselves succeed, it’s more important to put passion over struggle, especially when you’re trying to help combat a global issue. The most recurring struggle that we share is keeping up with everything: Sustainable Suburbs, school, extracurriculars, and our personal lives. While working on this project, we’ve realized that we don’t have to be able to do it all; we’ve found a balance and rely on open communication, something that we pride ourselves in when talking to our chapters and each other. It helps us keep each other accountable and everything running smoothly. We might have our off days, but they are always accounted for.

Nothing is perfect, and needless to say, neither are we. Luckily, we can rely on each other to work through our obstacles and push Sustainable Suburbs to be the best it can be.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
We are most proud of the community members we have educated, whether that is through our youth events or recycling drives. We have educated about 70 children, helping them learn through environmental concepts like recycling and acid rain through many events: Chalk the Walk, Science Camp, and Scavenger Hunts. However, we have extended this to adults and teenagers, where our recycling drives act as a mode to have a physical and educational impact. Throughout the month, we offer to collect large recycling items to clean and sort. On drop off days, we ensure to highlight the different types of waste and clear any misconceptions. Fun fact— receipts are not recyclable! It is not often you find people who genuinely care about the environment and extend their passion across the globe; Sustainable Suburbs has grown to over 15 chapters, present in 5 countries.

Any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general?
It is best to find a mentor in people who are genuinely passionate about your topic and extend that passion into their everyday lives. For us, these mentors are teachers and are fellow chapter presidents. Talking to established youth organizations, speaking and understanding what has worked for them and applying it our organization has helped us network better and grow our social media presence/overall organization.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sustainablesuburbs
• Other: Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/sustainablesuburbsnews