Sustainability Services is a student-led program that strives to reduce waste on campus with the mantra, “reduce, reuse, recycle.”
These students stand by this mission by wheeling around on golf carts to the major waste removal sites and dealing with that waste daily. Most of their efforts do comprise recycling of student waste. For example, recycling one ton of cardboard saves 90kW/hr. of electricity, 46 gallons of oil, and 9 cubic yards of landfill space.
However, this April Sustainability Services is refocusing their efforts on reducing the overall production of waste by putting on events that promote and represent the spirit of Sustainability Services. These events were made possible due to the work force both growing in numbers and competence.
Greeks Go Green is an upcoming Sustainable Instagram challenge targeted at an influential sector of our campus, the Greek System. Marcella Heineke, a sophomore and a student field manager for Sustainability Services, piloted the Program through collaboration with the rest of Sustainability Services because the Greek houses were lacking in their recycling efforts.
“One of my friends, a Greek student, would Snapchat when he recycled correctly, and even coined the term Positive Recycling Adventures, so we thought ‘how could we positively increase recycling in a fun way,’” Heineke said about the motivation for Greeks Go Green.
This event is happening April 13 through April 24 and the goal is for Greeks to record sustainable actions—like using mugs at diversions, walking to class instead of driving, or going to an Earth Week Event—on Instagram. Whichever house has the best or most Instagram pics wins a point for the day, and whoever has the most points by April 24 gets an all-expenses-paid pizza party. The takeaway is to promote sustainability in a positive, relevant fashion.
Sage Haynes, another sophomore and field manager, discussed another event on its second iteration that is coming up this month as well.
“The Box Castle contest is an event where Sustainability Services collects boxes for upwards of a month, and then proceeds to build a fort from these boxes to display how much waste this campus accumulates in such a short amount of time,” Haynes said.
Last year, when the Box Castle event was held in Oppenheimer courtyard, Sustainability Services collected upwards of 1700 boxes in less than a month, but due to location and lack of publicity there wasn’t as much participation from the campus community to marvel at the display.
“We didn’t get as much participation as we would have liked,” Haynes said.
This lack of participation is why Sustainability Services will be holding the event in Marshall Hall in front of the fireplace during Earth Week on Friday, April 24. The idea is for students to add to the fort but come and go as they please in an easily accessible location.
