Recycling and the environment

Plymouth State has seen many changes in the years since it evolved from a small college to a state university. Classes are more crowded, Plymouth’s reputation as being a party school is succeeding, and suddenly, the environment has become a high priority. As a senior, I remember when Plymouth was still a college. Coming from a southern city, I had expected to be surrounded by tree hugging, hemp wearing, Martha Stewart loving students and faculty. This was not the case. This seeming lack of environmental concern hasn’t come from lack of care, but lack of awareness. Sure, there is an environmentally focused group on campus, known as Common Ground, but few people knew about it. There were recycling bins outside of the residence halls for students to use, but lets be realistic for a moment-how many students are honestly going to walk outside from the seventh floor of Grafton Hall to recycle an old essay or soda can? Plymouth State is certainly on its way to becoming an environmentally focused university. Last year, the monthly Sidore Lecture series highlighted speakers who were environmentally focused. Common Ground sponsored a few movies aimed at educating the public on environmental issues such as drilling in Artic Alaska and the coming end of oil. A summerim class was offered in Sweden to highlight the Natural Step, a program many Swedish companies use to ensure their actions have the least environmental impact possible. Plymouths’ current project, the Langdon Woods Student Housing Complex is shooting for silver certification in LEED building. LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is fairly revolutionary. There are only a few hundred LEED certified buildings in the world, with a few hundred more in the works. This is certainly an excellent start, and gives the university fair bragging rights. There is still much work to be done, however, if Plymouth truly wants to call itself a ‘green school.’ How about recycled paper for faculty and student photocopiers and printers? Recycling is a cycle after all-merely tossing your old papers into a separate bin isn’t enough- we need to spend the extra cash to buy recycled materials as well. What if teachers photocopied on both sides of the paper? The amount of paper this would save would even out the additional cost of purchasing recycled paper.How about the dozens of beer cans most students toss out in black garbage bags out of fear of being question by authority? Imagine if the campus held a “no questions asked” can and bottle drive, where anyone, from freshmen to Greek life members, could give back to the environment without fearing harassment. Last year, Plymouth State sponsored an Earth Day where food was served on Frisbees, and recycling was promoted. In the 1970’s, when Earth Day was first introduced, one day a year was impressive. Today, we need to take bigger steps. We need to think of each and every day as Earth Day. As we students, staff, and faculty begin another year, let us make it one where we truly make a difference-and improve not just our minds, but the world we expect to support us.