2008 Woodie Awards
Honor and the environment
Briana Gapsis
Issue date: 2/14/07 Section: News
We've long taken pride in our honor code at W&L. In a world where honesty and responsibility seem increasingly rare, we can still trust each other to do the right thing. Over the last few years, W&L has been taking the notion of honorable action to a new field; we've become increasingly responsible with respect to the environment. Though often initiatives to improve campus sustainability are subtle and hardly noticed, you can now see the evidence of W&L's commitment to the environment at new locations across campus.
Since the end of January, there have been large corrals slowly filling with aluminum cans between the Gilliam Dorm and the Hill House, by the Lewis Hall parking lot, in the Red Square parking lot, and behind Phi Psi. These are part of W&L's first attempt to compete in RecycleMania, a ten-week long intercollegiate contest to promote recycling across the United States.
Ed Newman from Ohio University and Stacy Edmonds Wheeler from Miami University started RecycleMania in February 2001. Since then, the competition has spread nationwide. Its goals are to increase the participation of students in recycling efforts, reduce the production of trash, and raise awareness of waste management and recycling programs nationwide. RecycleMania has expanded continually since its inception, and, this year, over two-hundred colleges and universities are participating.
Kelly Hishta, a senior from the Student Environmental Action League (SEAL), emphasizes the importance of recycling efforts on campus. "The landfill currently in use by the school is almost full and the cost of dumping our waste will be increasing by 300%," she says, "so it will become more 'economical" to recycle on campus." SEAL hopes th't our participation in RecycleMania will increase recycling across the campus, reducing the strain on our landfill and possibly even bring some glory to W&L.
Schools are ranked weekly based on the rate of recycling, the amount of recyclables collected per capita, the amount collected in total, and the production of the least trash per capita.
Last week, Yale was named Grand Champion and Sheldon Jackson College, the Uniersity of Wisconsin:Eau Claire, Connecticut College, West Los Angeles Community College, and Binghamton University appeared among the top schools in each category. While even VMI placed fifth for paper recycling, W&L was nowhere to be seen. However, we can change this. There are eight and a half weeks left, and recyclables placed in bins anywhere on campus (Co-Op, library, science center…) are included in our totals. Even more staggeringly, goods recycled from campus housing also count.
According to Hishta, "W&L has a huge potential to place high in the competition if the fraternities support the effort."
Since the end of January, there have been large corrals slowly filling with aluminum cans between the Gilliam Dorm and the Hill House, by the Lewis Hall parking lot, in the Red Square parking lot, and behind Phi Psi. These are part of W&L's first attempt to compete in RecycleMania, a ten-week long intercollegiate contest to promote recycling across the United States.
Ed Newman from Ohio University and Stacy Edmonds Wheeler from Miami University started RecycleMania in February 2001. Since then, the competition has spread nationwide. Its goals are to increase the participation of students in recycling efforts, reduce the production of trash, and raise awareness of waste management and recycling programs nationwide. RecycleMania has expanded continually since its inception, and, this year, over two-hundred colleges and universities are participating.
Kelly Hishta, a senior from the Student Environmental Action League (SEAL), emphasizes the importance of recycling efforts on campus. "The landfill currently in use by the school is almost full and the cost of dumping our waste will be increasing by 300%," she says, "so it will become more 'economical" to recycle on campus." SEAL hopes th't our participation in RecycleMania will increase recycling across the campus, reducing the strain on our landfill and possibly even bring some glory to W&L.
Schools are ranked weekly based on the rate of recycling, the amount of recyclables collected per capita, the amount collected in total, and the production of the least trash per capita.
Last week, Yale was named Grand Champion and Sheldon Jackson College, the Uniersity of Wisconsin:Eau Claire, Connecticut College, West Los Angeles Community College, and Binghamton University appeared among the top schools in each category. While even VMI placed fifth for paper recycling, W&L was nowhere to be seen. However, we can change this. There are eight and a half weeks left, and recyclables placed in bins anywhere on campus (Co-Op, library, science center…) are included in our totals. Even more staggeringly, goods recycled from campus housing also count.
According to Hishta, "W&L has a huge potential to place high in the competition if the fraternities support the effort."
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