EcoReps

Hello! My name is Christina, and I am the new UW Sustainability Projects Assistant. I'll be going into my sophomore year at UW this fall, and I am pursuing a double-degree in Environmental Studies and Environmental Science & Terrestrial Resource Management. I'm also the Membership & Service-Learning Coordinator for EcoReps, so I can answer any EcoReps related questions! I enjoy hiking, photography, and taking care of plants.

Sustainability in the arts, greening health sciences, and certifications for student groups. Selling succulents for sustainability, greening the Greek community, and leading local markets. The students of UW EcoReps work on sustainability initiatives that have an impact on many different aspects of the University of Washington.

How often do you sit down to a meal and think about the journey it took to arrive in front of you? Like most of us, probably not that often. In the age of take-out meals and cheap frozen dinners, it’s easy to disregard thinking about where your food comes from, where it goes, and who it affects.

As food moves from farm to table, it affects everyone in the system. From the farmers to the consumers, and everyone else along the way, issues of food justice and food sovereignty greatly impact communities all around the world.

This Earth Day, one green-minded club geared up for a big weekend of recycling clothes. For the first time ever, UW EcoReps partnered with Crossroads Trading Company for a fundraiser honoring Earth Day. Members of the local community were encouraged to stop by Crossroads' University Way and NE 43rd St location. If they sold an article of clothing and mentioned EcoReps, $5 was donated to the club's charity of choice.

This has been a busy year for the UW EcoReps. To be honest, we’ve already done so much that it’s hard to boil it all down to a few paragraphs. As a new member and first time officer, I’ve learned a lot about sustainability from working with this group. EcoReps started off the year with only two members, and slowly grew to the 15 volunteers that represent us today. It’s been quite a journey, but one that was well worth the effort!

The University of Washington’s Seattle campus won the 2017 PAC-12 Grand Champion award during RecycleMania, a national collegiate waste diversion tournament. The 786 metric tons of CO2 that UW kept out of the landfill is equivalent to the total amount of energy consumption of 68 households, or removing 154 cars off the road.

The student organization EcoReps supported UW Recycling’s efforts in generating event awareness on campus this year. 

Cornell University and the University of Washington are both national leaders for sustainability movements on college campuses. In fact, they both made The Princeton Review’s 2017 Green College Honor Roll, in which schools must receive a score of 99 (the highest possible score) in a Green Rating tally.

It’s no secret that waste is a big problem in some areas of the UW Greek Community, as well as other areas north of campus. This problem turns from big to BIG in the month before school starts (late August and early September) and the month after school ends (June). Students are on the move, transitioning between houses, apartments, dorms, etc. and in the process a lot of waste gets left behind or abandoned on the street as somebody else’s problem.

The student group UW EcoReps works with the Greek community at UW to promote sustainability. EcoReps has created a Green Greek representative program to bring students from houses across the Greek community together to find opportunities in houses, on campus and beyond. Check out this video for more information on UW's Green Greek representatives:

Tali Haller has been a student at the University of Washington for less than two years, and she's already won two Husky Green Awards – an accomplishment no one else has achieved.

"It's very motivating, and it also gives some validity to the things that I'm doing," she said about the Husky Green Award wins. "It's really nice to be recognized for work that I'm doing on campus."

Tali has already been able to make a big impact promoting sustainability in the UW Greek system, as well as being involved in many other environmental and sustainability projects on campus and off.