I wanted to bring more students in on the Atlantic Universities and Colleges Sustainability Network activities. From working on campus sustainability before my school had any membership in AUCSN, I was under the false impression that student environment societies were still looked at as auxiliary waste management, at best. Although AUCSN schools still ask students for help with educating the student body about good recycling practices, the schools’ sustainability goals are broader and more substantial than simply sorting trash.
The next frontier for Sustainability King’s is to try to create a few compost sites on campus. Alex Doyle, the facilities director will help us with this, but he told me that the facilities team can’t pick up the compost, so students will have to dump the compost in the outdoor bins every day. If we could inspire all the students on residence to participate, the action of removing the compost from the residence kitchens could foster a more conscientious student body. Alex told me that he would welcome anything that would encourage students to take responsibility for the cleanliness and health of the campus.
I think students would gladly take responsibility if they knew that it was part of a bigger project to make the school better and protect the environment. Taking time to help in a small green project is much more rewarding when you can see that the big players in the University are taking time to do things too. On this basis, I want our work with AYEC to really connect the students and the facilities and the administration so that everyone is happy to work together to tackle our ecological footprint. I hope we can advance this goal when we have our joint AYEC-AUCSN meeting at the AYEC conference at Acadia on Oct. 25-27.
Atlantic Youth Environmental Council 