4 Incredibly Simple Actions to Improve Campus Sustainability
Posted by: Cameron | Posted on: September 20, 2021Next month is international Campus Sustainability month. Throughout October, colleges and universities will be organizing events to bring awareness to sustainability issues, with the hopes of inspiring students and faculty to be more environmentally conscious and encourage generational change.
Whether you’re on campus or not, if you are in charge of a sustainability program, there are four critical areas that you need to address in order to ensure it has significant long-term success. Thinking back to my university days, these four attributes of their recycling program have stuck with me for over 20 years, even though I wasn’t directly involved in any campus sustainability groups.
Make it Cool
I arrived in McDonald Hall as a freshman at Bowling Green State University (Go Falcons!) in August of 1997. One of the first things I noticed in those few days before classes began were all the recycling containers. It was a huge transition from high school, where recycling wasn’t nearly as top of mind.
What makes the BGSU recycling program memorable for me is that they attached a slogan with a double-meaning to it. BGSU Can Recycle was a creative play on words. Yes, it was obviously an initiative for students to recycle their pop cans. More importantly, it was also a proclamation to everyone associated with BGSU. Bowling Green was committed to doing a better job of recycling and being environmentally conscious. Their motto let everyone on campus know that we all had a part to play.
Make it Convenient
If you’re trying to change the habits of people in your organization or neighborhood, removing as many barriers as possible is crucial. Bowling Green consistently did a great job of this.
Recycling containers weren’t just in dining halls. They were everywhere. If you were walking from the Student Union to Jerome Library, you passed one in the center of campus. If you were farther away, like at the Rec Center, a recycling center was there too. BGSU made it very easy for students to recycle, and we responded accordingly.
Even at massive events like the annual back-to-school campus cookout, recycling containers were prevalent. Yet, if you walked by University Hall even 15 minutes afterward, you would never know that thousands of hungry college students just had lunch, all spread out across the lawn. Keeping the campus clean was important to everyone, so we all did our part.
Make it a Challenge
Nobody likes a problem, but everyone loves a good challenge. I heard Tony Robbins say that once, and it really stuck with me.
When I was a student, BGSU was great at promoting challenges for various causes. These were highlighted at football and basketball games, where Greek houses and residence halls were always highly visible and usually competing for some cause.
Friendly competition gets people involved. More than just saying “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”, find a way to put a competitive spin on your program. You’ll be surprised at the results you can achieve through fun competition.
Make it the Culture
As a student, I was always very impressed that Greek houses and residence halls were at the forefront of every large campus-wide initiative. Whether it was Dance Marathon, environmental causes, or special one-day events, they were instrumental in promoting to the rest of campus. Your organization can operate similarly.
Find the influencers in your organization and get them on board with your sustainability initiatives. It only takes a few people taking consistent action to improve the culture and spread positive change.
Times Have Changed
In my research, I found that BGSU Can Recycle was retired quite a while ago. To be honest, I’m not sure if that was ever an official slogan, but it was everywhere on campus and obviously had a lasting impression on me. I’m a very thorough and consistent recycler now, and that likely took shape during my years at BGSU.
You can find more about the Going Green at Bowling Green initiatives (started in 2008) by visiting their Office of Campus Sustainability.
Recycling- Are you doing it correctly?
Posted by: Darian Branham | Posted on: February 12, 2021Most people in the United States are taught that they should recycle, and most (94%) say they support recycling, so why are only 34.7% of Americans actually recycling? According to a 2019 survey by the waste management company Covanta, this inaction can be attributed to a lack of understanding on how to recycle, rather than a lack of care. Unfortunately, despite their good intentions, even those who do actively recycle are not always doing so correctly. This leads to recyclables becoming contaminated and unusable.
What is recycling contamination?
Contamination occurs when product residue remains on recyclables, when non-recyclables are mixed with recyclables, and when different types of recyclable materials are mixed. If a batch of recycling has too high of a contamination percentage, the entire batch is discarded as waste. The most effective way to prevent this waste is to follow the guidelines established by each recycling company- Never assume that the procedures for each type of recycling will be the same!
How can contamination be prevented?
A great first step to avoiding contamination in recycling is making sure the intended items align with current guidelines. For plastics and some other non-standard materials, start by searching for a recycling number or recycling instructions- If you cannot find a recycling number or instructions, chances are that the item in question is not recyclable. Exceptions may include cardboard, paper, aluminum, tin, or steel cans, which are typically recyclable. After confirming an item is recyclable, the next step is to thoroughly rinse out any food, cleaning, or cosmetic product residue from the container. If recycling cardboard or paper, be sure to look out for any oil or food stains, as those count as contaminates.
Another great way to avoid contamination is by using sorted recycling bins instead of single-stream recycling bins. Single-stream recycling is a system in which all types of recyclables can be placed in the same bin; however, this type of recycling often leads to cross contamination causing huge waste. While convenient, oftentimes neither humans nor machines can adequately and quickly sort single-stream recyclables resulting in high levels of contamination. Remember, contaminated recyclables end up in a landfill: exactly what we are trying to avoid by recycling! Because of these reasons, separating recyclables into like bins is the safest way to go.
A Note from the Author
The next time you unpack a cardboard box or empty a can of soup, remember the simple step I have laid out for you. I hope you feel empowered by the knowledge that you can make the correct decisions regarding product recyclability and preparation. Thank you for doing your part to keep waste out of landfills!
To find more information on specific types of recycling, follow these resources:
https://www-tc.pbs.org/strangedays/pdf/StrangeDaysSmartPlasticsGuide.pdf
https://www.container-recycling.org/index.php/issues/single-stream-recycling
https://www.recycling.com/cardboard-recycling/
https://www.recyclenow.com/what-to-do-with/food-tins-drink-cans-0
https://www.paperrecycles.org/recycling-paper-products/what-is-recyclable-/recycling-at-home
https://earth911.com/recycling-guide/how-to-recycle-tin-or-steel-cans/
Wearing Sustainability
Posted by: Darian Branham | Posted on: October 7, 2020Living sustainably on an individual basis may seem as simple as drinking from a refillable water container, refusing plastic grocery bags, and recycling. However, many people miss out on a major and necessary area of sustainability, which is what they wear.
According to the EPA, textiles, such as clothing, shoes, bags, bedding and more, accounted for 14.4 million tons of total municipal solid waste in 2017, which equates to around 70 lbs per person in the US. These numbers do not need to be so high, but the reality of the matter is that consumerism and fast-fashion are so common that they have been conditioned into the minds of millions.
Thankfully, there are several approaches that can be taken to help decrease the amount of needless textile waste that ends up being added to landfills or incinerated.
Buy Less
Buying less is the most impactful and obvious thing that can be done to decrease textile waste. This can be accomplished by repairing old clothing vs throwing it away, avoiding purchases based on trends, and putting together custom capsule wardrobes. A capsule wardrobe is centered around a few staple, versatile articles of clothing, shoes, and accessories that pair well with each other, and can be easily mixed and matched to create multiple outfits that suit the style and needs of the wearer. Taking the time to create an individualized capsule wardrobe deters people from submitting to the temptations of fast-fashion, as well as simplifies the process of getting ready for the day.
Guide on how to get started with a capsule wardrobe here: https://importantenough.com/how-to-create-the-perfect-capsule-wardrobe/
Buy Second-Hand
The best thing to do when in need of additional clothing is to try to find items you need second-hand from a yard sale, thrift shop, or online marketplace. Buying second-hand can easily save you money, while also saving on textile waste.
Buy sustainably
When buying second-hand is not an option, choosing clothing made from sustainable materials like organic cotton, hemp, linen, bamboo, recycled cloth, etc., or choosing clothing from brands that are transparent about their production processes still helps to make up for some of the negative environmental impact brought on by introducing more products into existence.
Go the extra mile
One extra step that can be taken to minimize harm to the planet is to purchase a filter to help catch some of the synthetic microfibers that come off of clothing while washing, preventing them from entering and polluting the water system. This step may not fit the budget of all sustainability warriors, but another alternative to installing a filter is tossing your clothes in a filtration bag while washing, or adding a specially designed laundry ball that helps catch some of the microfibers that would otherwise be washed away.
Versions of these items can be found here: https://eluxemagazine.com/living/tech/5-great-microfiber-filters-to-help-stop-microplastic-pollution/
Statistics Sources:
Office Workplace Sustainability: Tips for Increasing Mindfulness & Reducing Wastefulness
Posted by: Darian Branham | Posted on: July 22, 2020When considering living a sustainable lifestyle, the first thing that comes to mind may be the decisions you make at home and in your free-time. This makes sense considering that is when and where you have the most control, but the average person actually spends around one third of their lifetime at their job. With this apparent, sustainability practices in the workplace should be considered equally important as they are at home or in public.
Tips on how to have a Less Wasteful Workplace Kitchen
1. Instead of plastic bags, use reusable containers that seal such as silicone zip-bags, glass containers, or reusable plastic containers. Your office will want to have a few extra that people can borrow to take home leftovers in case they forget their own.
2. Instead of plasticware and disposable dining products, consider using reusable silverware, plates, bowls, etc.
3. If your office serves coffee, consider using a coffee a pot and washable mugs instead of disposable foam cups. Or, if using a Keurig (single use) coffee maker, use a reusable pod and ground coffee instead of single-use disposable pods.
4. If your office takes trips to the grocery store to stock snacks, beverages, or condiments be sure to bring reusable grocery bags with you to avoid needing to use disposable plastic bags.
Recycling
At Lyon Software, we set up recycling bins for containers, cardboard, and paper, all labeled with details on which items are acceptable to go in. Once the bins fill up, we take them to one of our storage rooms, where we keep larger sorted bins to dump our smaller office bins into to collect the recycling until the time comes to take it to the recycling center- We try to make it very simple and efficient to encourage more people to participate in recycling, and have had great success!
Utilizing Natural Light
Instead of keeping the lights on in your office or work area all day, try to make a habit of flipping the lights off whenever you leave your area (going to complete a task in another area, going to the restroom, going to have lunch, etc.), or on bright days, you might not need extra light if you have a window in your work area, so consider working without extra lights on.
How to be Less Wasteful when Ordering and Shipping
1. Request sustainable packaging from Amazon if purchasing with them- you can do so by contacting their customer services via email or phone. You can also check with any shipping company or supplier you use to see if they have sustainable shipping alternatives and utilize them when applicable.
2. If you need to ship from your office, consider using more sustainable methods such as minimizing the amount of paper mail sent by digitizing what is sent, using recycled paper, and choosing envelopes without plastic windows.