This semester, I began working at one of the student-run coffee shops on campus and was appalled to see that my shop doesn’t recycle. At all. We separate cardboard into different trash bags, but I’m sure that the bag sitting patiently next to our piles of trash gives whoever picks them up cause to toss it all in the compactor together. My manager responded to my concern with, “Well, Georgetown doesn’t recycle anyway, so anything we do gets thrown back in.”
The largest problem with the Georgetown recycling program is that students don’t believe that it exists. But we have a recycling program on campus, and while perhaps not every milk jug or beer can that is thrown in the appropriately labeled bins will find its merry way to the recycling facility, the system is in place.
The problem is a communication gap between the student body and the program. If a campus store that has to deal with the Georgetown bureaucracy and management systems on a daily basis is ignorant of the programs affecting its work, how can the students be expected to discover the same programs? We need greater outreach to the campus that addresses details of the policies in place. We need an authoritative voice to shout the truth about what students can do.
We must overcome the Georgetown-wide environmentalist stereotype. The environmental cause is not one only for the far-left green sneaker-donning post-modern hippies who preach free love-the environment is merely a practical issue of global and pressing concern. This could be helped with student-backed support because, as we learned from the Living Wage campaign last semester, the administration can be made to listen. There are students and groups who want change on campus, as the 400+ Eco-Action list serve can attest to, but we need to mobilize, expand and share our concerns with others. Simply adding an email address to the list at SAC Fair doesn’t cut it.
Student support for recycling is essential, but having administrative support is equally important. The administration does the work that students don’t see. It needs to put permanent policies in place that do not fall apart when the group president takes a year abroad or one club head is particularly ineffective. If the administration isn’t willing to make any sort of commitment to ensuring that Georgetown is acting in an environmentally responsible way, student plans can never come to fruition.
And it would be smart for Georgetown to support it-there is an economic incentive for the University to be environmentally responsible. A recently instituted Harvard University program aimed at controlling energy use in university-managed facilities and bettering energy efficiency through new motors, controls, insulation and better temperature controls will save the University over $700,000 per year. Despite the fact that the changes cost $1.7 million, between calculated savings and utility company efficiency encouragement rebates of over $600,000, the project will pay for itself entirely in two years. Even if we don’t have the Harvard millions to devote, Energy Star says that to switch from a 100-watt incandescent to a 32-watt compact fluorescent light can save $30 in energy costs over the life of the bulb. Electric lights consume the largest portion of energy in most school buildings, so more efficient fixtures can have huge impacts on overall use.
Let’s face it; we are far behind on this issue. Scientific studies bring mounting evidence that environmental concern is no longer optional. We see very tangible and immediate disasters and dangers coming from our choices. We must take responsibility for the masses of waste we produce. It is high time that Georgetown recognizes this fact and holds it up to the light of its policies.
