SUSTAINABILITY ON CAMPUS

By: Brittney Steele 

Being sustainable is about more than the phrase reduce, reuse, recycle; it’s also about people, planet, and profit. 

“Sustainability and climate change go hand in hand because what we’ve been finding out now is that the way we’ve been using the atmosphere to just discharge carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions, that’s not sustainable,” said Thomas Esqueda, the associate vice president for water and sustainability at Fresno State. 

Recycling is part of being sustainable, but researchers are finding that just recycling is not enough. Recycling is complex; it runs off of profit, meaning the materials collected and recycled are ones on the market. 

If incorrect materials are put into recycling bins, it could contaminate the entire batch of recyclables thus rendering them non-recyclable.

“So that’s the next step we’ve got to work on is the education outreach on ‘this is what goes in the blue bin. This is what goes in the grey bin,’” Esqueda said. 

The Sustainability Club at Fresno State helped to get the recycling bins onto the campus.

“It was a major success getting these recycling bins placed on campus. However, something that was neglected, unfortunately, was significant education regarding these,” said Devon Lee, vice president of the Sustainability Club. 

To avoid contaminating the campus recycling bins, the Sustainability Club has a plan.

“We’re going to be putting posters, hopefully soon, in the bottom of the USU with diagrams of commonly purchased items that’ll say what is recyclable and what is not,” Lee said. 

Sustainability also means lowering water, energy, and greenhouse gas footprints. Some tips to live more sustainably include taking shorter showers, carpooling, riding a bike or taking public transit, or not going through drive-thrus. You can also use reusable water bottles instead of one-time-use plastic bottles.