Boston University students living in Rich Hall may soon find EcoReps digging through their trash.
Ten students who have volunteered to run sustainability@BU’s EcoRep pilot program are willing to get their hands dirty in search of ways to promote greener habits throughout the dormitory. After going through the trashcans on the 13 floors within the next two weeks, the EcoReps plan to rank each floor’s recycling habits.
‘ ‘We’re going to try to motivate each floor to recycle more,’ EcoRep Coordinator Emily Pan, who was elected through the Rich Hall Residence Hall Association to lead the program, said. ‘As of right now there are still kids throwing bottles into the trash.’
The EcoReps plan to post a list of accepted recyclables on the floors, and offer ways for each floor to improve its ranking. The rankings are one of several plans the EcoRep program, which began this semester, has to promote green living in Rich Hall.
The EcoReps program in Rich Hall is a test-run before it is potentially implemented across campus, according to sustainability@BU representatives. The EcoReps, who are all student volunteers who live in West Campus, have met three times this semester to evaluate Rich Hall’s consumption habits, before enacting plans next semester.
Pan, a College of Arts and Sciences sophomore, said reminders such as the recycling rankings, along with posters, act as positive reinforcements without being too negative about student consumption habits.
Susan Lebovits, spokeswoman for sustainability@BU, the administration’s initiative to reduce BU’s overall environmental impact through a steering committee and four working groups, reiterated Pan’s message.’
Lebovits said the primary goal of EcoReps is to inform students about how they can reduce their carbon footprint on campus. December’s message is, ‘Flip them off,’ to encourage students to turn off lights when not in use.
EcoReps are hosting flashlight tag in Rich Hall’s cinema room this week to promote the theme.
‘My hope is that the campus would look at us as educators and not as the green police,’ Lebovits said.’
According to December’s poster campaign, ‘In 2008, BU used 161 million kWh of electricity, enough to power 15,000 homes.’
It further states that ‘If everyone at BU turned off one light for an hour everyday we could save 733 thousand 500 kWh annually, enough to power 68 homes and avoid 527 metric tonnes of CO2 emissions.’
Next semester, with the help of sustainability@BU, EcoReps plan on looking into an EcoReps at-large program, where students across campus can volunteer to enact similar programs in their own dorms.
Currently, about 30 universities have some form of the EcoRep program in place, including Brandeis University and Harvard University.’
EcoRep students from 14 universities in the Northeast came together for a November symposium, hosted by Tufts University, who started the first EcoRep program.
EcoRep programs vary depending on school size and student interest. For example, at Brandeis University, EcoRep students are paid $9 an hour to work about 3.5 hours a week to promote sustainable practices in dormitories through events and green room certificates.
BU is also looking into a green room certification, similar to the program at Brandeis, representatives said. Brandeis’ green room certification process asks students to list 10 green habits they do or will do, such as unplugging items when not in use, and using a drying rack, according to the Brandeis web site survey.
This semester, sustainability@BU has also focused on finalizing its website, which is set to launch Jan. 21, representatives said. They also plan to offer a podcast that will act as a self-guided tour of green efforts on campus.
CAS freshman Amelia Wisniewski-Barker, who also lives in Rich Hall, said she thinks green room certification would be a good incentive for students to increase eco-friendly habits.’
‘ ‘I’m sure that my roommate and I would get green certified,’ Wisniewski-Barker said.
Though she said some sort of reward for getting green certified might be more helpful overall.
CAS freshman Stefanie Szeto, who lives on the 12th floor in Rich Hall, said a major recycling issue in Rich Hall is that there are no recycling bins on the floors, causing a lot of people to throw recyclables in the trashcans rather than go downstairs.
Szeto said it was initially very confusing because some students thought one of the trashcans was for recycling.
‘It took us a while to realize that the recycling is downstairs, in the lounge,’ Szeto said. ‘I think because there are trashcans on every floor, but the recycling is only on the first floor, people are less inclined to recycle.’
The EcoRep program should focus on posting signs that inform students where the recycling bins are located, Szeto said. In the future, she said she hopes BU puts recycling bins on each floor.
‘If there’s not a good system for letting people know about [recycling], they’ll just overlook it,’ Szeto said.
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CAS freshman Stefanie Szeto, who lives on the 12th floor in Rich Hall, said a major recycling issue in Rich Hall is that there are no recycling bins on the floors, causing a lot of people to throw recyclables in the trashcans rather than go downstairs.<p/>In other words, many of the people that throw recyclables in trashcans are just lazy. <p/>In my dormitory we do not have recycling bins on each floor, only in the lounge on the first floor. An easy way to recycle without making a lot of trips is filling up a bag of recyclables, and when it is full you can then dump the recyclables into the recycling bin. I keep a small bag for plastic bottles in my room, and I make a trip downstairs to empty it when it fills up. <p/>It pains me to see people unwilling or unmotivated to take steps to recycle and better our earth.