With the recent flurry of environmental concern, the global protests with high schoolers walking out of class and widespread media coverage, the environment and its fate have become central to our current climate. We as consumers hold a great deal of power over what policies are elected and what norms are established in terms of the environment. If we push for recycling to be the standard and act accordingly, sooner or later, that’s what will be the norm. The question of environmental consciousness depends on three main things: awareness/education, sense of power, and ability. Awareness and education are aimed at the idea that if people are unaware of their behavior and its consequences on the environment, they most likely won’t be interested in doing anything to combat these things. A sense of power gets at the notion that many people feel their individual contribution won’t really make a difference in the grand scheme of things. This is heavily tied to the education portion of the understanding of the human impact on our environment. Choosing not to consume meat one day a week, for example, can immensely cut annual carbon, water and methane emissions, even for just one person. Lastly, ability refers to the systems available to people to allow them to act conscientiously–think proper recycling bins or water fountains. Assuming all of us are interested in preserving the planet for our future as well as the futures of out kids, here are some ways you can be more environmentally conscious on campus:
1) Choose the meatless options from dining halls
The less demand there is for meat, the less the university will order of this product. Meat in general is a huge contributor to environmental damage in terms of water, land, and resource use. Your best option is to choose the vegetarian or even vegan options that your school (hopefully) provides.
2) Bring reusable coffee mugs
We’re all living off of coffee and other stimulants to get through work, but we can continue to do this without throwing out plastic or paper cups once, twice, or three times every day. Try finding yourself a steel water bottle that is suitable for hot beverage–steel because it’s the least damaging for the environment and for your health, and suitable for hot beverages because you want to avoid opening a bottle and having the scalding contents burst all over your laptop (been there, it’s not great). That being said, if you can, lose the plastic straw (think of the sea turtles!).
3) Use revolving doors
At the NYU New York campus most of the non-revolving doors have signs on them saying “please use the revolving doors to save energy.” I didn’t really think much of this until I heard about the amount of heat that is lost by using the ‘regular’ doors. Revolving doors allow much more of the heat generated inside a building to be contained. By using the revolving doors you’re helping the university use heating systems less, in turn wasting less energy and saving money.
4) Eat in a dining hall, don’t take your food to go
I get it, we’re all busy and food on the go is just convenient sometimes. But using plastic cutlery or containers when you really don’t need to be is just adding an unnecessary amount of garbage to an already huge system of waste. Of course, sometimes you don’t have the time to sit down and eat at a dining hall, but in that case opt for the compostable cutlery or container (if your school offers these).
5) Only print if you need to
I’ve known of students who print every single reading or every sheet of paper the professor makes available. This just seems a little excessive to me. Some people do learn by reading hard copies, but if it’s unnecessary, leave the paper and use a digital copy, or share a copy. Again, the less demand there is for something in a university community, the less of that they will invest in. Less paper = more trees!
All in all, you’re attending school to better yourself, so why not better the environment at the same time?