After a year-long absence, the Boston Area Student Environmental Coalition has been reinstated due to the efforts of Aaron Michel, a University Professors program senior.
However, this is not Michel’s first experience at leading an environmental student group, as he is a former president of Boston University’s Environmental Student Organization.
‘We were in contact with student group leaders throughout the summer,’ Michel said. ‘We were really getting the ball rolling.’
The idea of a statewide student environmental coalition was originally brought up during an October 2000 environmental summit at Harvard University. During its first year, BASEC lobbied state legislatures to pass an environmental justice bill, while also raising funds through events such as an environmental concert, according to Michel.
However, Michel said weak leadership led to the failure of this group, and as he is hoping to avoid this in the future, he said he is looking to institutionalize the coalition and change leadership on an annual basis.
The coalition currently brings together other environmental groups from eight major Boston-area schools, including Boston University, Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Tufts University.
‘It is not every day that we have the opportunity to work with other colleges,’ Michel said. ‘I am glad that we are finally collaborating.’
Michel said more schools want to join, including Northeastern University, whose environmental group is working at ‘getting its act together.’ He currently estimates the number of BASEC student members to be between 750 and 1,000.
‘BU’s ESO has about 300 members,’ Michel said. ‘They are certainly one of the biggest, if not the biggest.’
He also said BU has two of its students on the five-member coalition board.
However, Michel emphasized presenting a unified front is key to getting local, if not statewide, attention. Each university, no matter what the size of its environmental coalition, has one representative in the coalition and gets one vote in the coalition’s decisions, he said.
‘[BASEC] allows student environmental groups to speak out with a united voice,’ Michel said.
Michel also said a coalition gives student environmental groups with small numbers a chance to hold big events and possibly attract more people. Most importantly, he said the organization is a way to achieve enhanced networking and information sharing.
‘The perfect example for [information sharing] is the paper campaign idea,’ Michel said.
Indeed, one of the coalition’s biggest projects currently is the ‘buy recycled’ initiative, originally launched by BU’s ESO. The idea behind it is to convince BASEC colleges to buy their paper in bulk at recycled paper dealers.
‘Recycling doesn’t make sense when there is no market for it,’ Michel said.
Michel cited New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who recently stopped the state’s bottle and can recycling because there was no market to which the state could sell its recycled goods.
The cost of recycled paper keeps universities from buying it, but Michel said purchasing enormous amounts of recycled paper would reduce it to costing as much as regular paper. He said he is convinced the campaign will be successful.
‘It is a massive bulk [of papers] if you’re talking six or seven universities,’ he said. ‘They would have every reason to purchase recycled paper if it is at the same price than regular paper.’
Even though this campaign will be mostly aimed at the university administrators, Michel said he believes this is an issue in which students should be involved. He said the universities are educating some of the United States’ future leaders and it is their social responsibility to give an example in environmental issues.
BASEC is also discussing other plans such as large-scale cleanups of the Charles River and other polluted areas in Boston, Michel said.
