Tossing an empty plastic wrapper into a recycling bin in the Teaching and Learning Center gives people a feeling that their seemingly small efforts are helping better the environment.
However, recycling can prove to be difficult when the resources to contribute on campus are limited.
At an ideal college campus, the ratio of garbage cans to recycling bins would be 1:1. However, the University of Idaho seems to be lacking in many aspects when it comes to environmental sustainability.
Most people have likely seen and used some of the recycling bins around campus. Some students may believe that we are a green campus because there are a couple of recycling or compost bins in the well-populated buildings that they walk through on a daily basis, such as the Idaho Commons.
Jessica Gee
In the Commons, there are plastic, compost and landfill bins with instructions on how to recycle your items correctly. This is a good step in the right direction, but it seems that the Commons is one of the only areas where these bins can be found.
While the university has obviously taken some sort of initiative to include more recycling on campus, the efforts seem to be centralized in buildings like the Commons and the Bruce Pitman Center. There is a large population of students who walk through these buildings every day. The problem is that these aren”t the only places that students regularly visit.
Even by simply walking around these buildings, it is fairly easy to see that the number of garbage cans outweigh that of the recycling bins.
While visiting the University of Idaho”s website and reading about our recycling services on campus, I counted a total of 36 recycling bins on campus. There are more than 36 buildings on campus – that means that there is maybe one recycling bin per building on campus, which is far too few to consider this to be a “green” campus.
At my old high school, there was a recycling bin right next to the trash can in all of my classrooms. Think back to the last class you had. Was there a recycling bin in the room? Personally, I have not seen a recycling bin in any of my classrooms. The fact that most of our high schools offered more chances for students to recycle than at this university is unbelievable, and frankly just sad.
Placing the blame for this issue is not my intention. Merely bringing this issue to light is something that is in the best interest of anyone who would like to make sure that we are acting as environmentally conscious citizens.
This is not to say that students on campus have no interest in being environmentally friendly. In fact, the student-led and student-funded Sustainability Center has made a great push toward making UI a green campus.
However, the Sustainability Center is only made up of nine student staff and their director. This organization understands the imminent danger of climate change and works hard to put on events to raise awareness, such as Game Day Recycling and Get Dirty.
Once again, it is clear that students care about this issue. When opportunities for recycling are made available to them, they use it. The problem is that people lack the information and motivation to step up to the plate and push for more on-campus recycling.
Last year I attended Colorado State University, where environmental sustainability programs were popular. There was an entire week during the school year called Earth Week that was dedicated to raising awareness for global warming and how students could do their part to help.
Granted, the population of CSU was a bit larger than UI”s, but that doesn”t mean similar measures shouldn”t be taken on our campus.
The university itself should be taking more steps to make our campus green. However, it is also up to students to become passionate about environmental issues, since there are so many across the globe today.
If you would like to learn more about how to be more environmentally conscious or volunteer, I urge you to contact the Sustainability Center or go to their location in Shoup Hall. Perhaps if students unite and show their interest in eco-friendly practices, we can influence the university and see some much-needed changes.
Jessica Gee can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @jaycgeek