The Green Week, or Ympäristöviikko (lit. “Environment Week”) provided events both informal and informative. Throughout the week in the beginning of October, lectures and panel discussions were held on relevant themes, including animal rights and environmental education. Every campus had something to offer.
At Kumpula campus there was a trash exhibition. Do you know how to sort your waste? What counts as cardboard and what goes into burnable mixed waste? The aim of the exhibition was to fill the containers throughout the week. This is what the situation looked like on the first day. Observe the full office paper bag (second from right) and the coffee cups in cardboard (the blue one). Can you tell this is an academic building?
The picture below is from the climate change panel, the screen reading “Climate change challenges the worldview”.
Thursday’s big event was the flea market, held at Porthania and the Main Building, where students could sell their old things or find new favourites. The market featured clothing, shoes, books, cups and plates… Who’d have thought you could go shopping at university?
Another good deed achieved by the Environment week was that people were asked to donate clothes in a collection organized by The University of Helsinki Green Team. The clothes would go to victims of the European refugee crises coming to Finland from areas in the Middle East. There were a total of six collection points on four campuses. This is what one collection point looked like on Thursday. By the following week it had grown significantly.
Though the Environment Week might be over, remember that you can stay green and environmentally conscious all the time!