Student Organizations

After Students Expressing Environmental Dedication (SEED) distributed hand towels to residents on Lander Hall’s eighth floor in a pilot program to reduce waste last year, the organization is gearing up for another test run.

Despite lackluster survey response totals tyring to gauge participation, SEED is planning to pass out hand towels to residents of the north tower of Haggett during winter quarter to reach additional students and gather more student response data.

About a dozen students from the UW’s Earth Club came together yesterday afternoon to wage a war against the more than 2,600 paper-towel dispensers on campus by placing a sticker on every single one.

Earth Club president, Vincent Gonzalez, has been working with faculty and building services to reduce on-campus paper-towel usage and decrease the nearly $180,000 that the campus spent on paper towels in the last academic year.

It seems like HFS has set out to prove to residents that composting food and service items from their rooms is a privilege, not a right. And I thought the UW was committed to sustainability.

Composting is one of the ways that the UW stands out as “green,” in the color’s purest hue. Michael Meyering, HFS manager for Project and Sustainability, said that about 600 tons of waste was composted last school year.

This year, HFS has discontinued keeping compost bins on every floor of Terry, Lander and Haggett Halls in favor of having one bin per residence hall.

The UW held its first Sustainability Summit yesterday, which was an event organized by the Campus Sustainability Fund (CSF) committee with the goal of gathering ideas on how its funds can be used.

The $340,000 fund, approved by the Services and Activities Fee committee last year, will serve as financial support for campus projects conducted by students, faculty and staff that aim to promote sustainability on campus.

Students returning to some residence halls this year may have noticed that there is no longer a compost bin on their floor. Last year, HFS placed compost bins on every floor of Terry, Lander and Haggett halls. But this year, after looking at costs, HFS has ended the one-bin-per-floor system. Each residence-hall building now has one compost bin, bringing composting to some halls for the first time.

Creating a new ASUW enterprise is no easy feat, as Matthew Steele, co-chair of the UW Student Food Cooperative has found. He has been working on the project, which would bring low-cost, nutritious food to campus, since fall quarter.

Members of the Campus Sustainability Fund (CSF) celebrated the fund’s establishment yesterday [May 18th, 2010], after the Services and Activities Fee (SAF) Committee granted half of its initial request Monday. With $339,805, the group now must decide on guidelines for how to allocate the funds.
 

Forty years ago 1970, a group of UW students collected garbage from home and on campus and brought it to the front of the HUB. There, they separated the trash into several categories — glass, metal, paper and plastic — and returned them to the original producers for reprocessing. Called a Trash-In, these students helped establish UW’s first recycling program.

Forty years ago 1970, a group of UW students collected garbage from home and on campus and brought it to the front of the HUB. There, they separated the trash into several categories — glass, metal, paper and plastic — and returned them to the original producers for reprocessing. Called a Trash-In, these students helped establish UW’s first recycling program.

Who says it's not easy being green? For Earth Day's 40th birthday on Thursday, April 22, students and staff are planning a variety of ways you can do just that, and learn about sustainability along the way. So go ahead and eat a little eggplant -- it won't kill ya -- and then compost that paper plate, please.