<\/a><\/p>\nUsually we go to the landfill, not the other way around.<\/p>\n
One afternoon in late September, though, the landfill did come to Bates. Or so it seemed. For in front of the New Commons Building, heaped on a blue tarp, appeared several dozen black plastic trash bags, rippling in brilliant sunshine and a gusty wind.<\/p>\n
Adding authenticity to the scene was a lone seagull loitering nearby. Students en route to and from Commons also stopped to see what was going on \u2014 and to see what a group of students, Bates EcoReps, were fishing out of the trash and displaying on the tarp.<\/p>\n
Paper, cardboard, beverage bottles and cans. Fourteen reusable plastic coffee mugs, six ceramic mugs, and a salad bowl from Commons. Duffle bags, an REI fleece vest, and other serviceable clothes.
\nAnd a Darth Vader mask. \u201cIt was the aftermath of the Eighties Dance,\u201d said one student, referring to the previous weekend\u2019s main festivity.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf people see the amount of waste that they\u2019ve made in a week that\u2019s the best way to get through to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
These items, found amid a day\u2019s worth of refuse from several campus residences and now laid out for everyone to see, all could have been reused or recycled. That was the point of this \u201cwaste audit\u201d: to give the campus plain evidence of the need for better recycling. All told, about a third of the refuse in those bags, by volume, could have been recycled.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s all about the visuals,\u201d says Shauna Mulvihill \u201912 of Lyme, N.H. She\u2019s an EcoRep \u2014 one of the nine students working with Environmental Coordinator Julie Rosenbach to produce eye-catching, green-consciousness-raising events on campus.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf people see the amount of waste that they\u2019ve made in a week,\u201d she says, \u201cthat\u2019s the best way to get through to them.\u201d
\nOn a campus nationally recognized for its sustainability efforts, the EcoReps are one of several groups working to win the hearts, minds, and habits of their peers, one recyclable pizza box at a time. \u201cWe hope they\u2019ll take the things they learn here and bring them to their communities after college, wherever they go,\u201d says Hannah Porst \u201911 of Madison, Wis.<\/p>\n
But students join other campus environmental groups, such as the Bates Energy Action Movement and the Environmental Coalition, as volunteers. And the staff-student-faculty Committee on Environmental Responsibility is an initiative of the College administration.<\/p>\n
In contrast, the EcoReps are on the College payroll, giving Rosenbach invaluable assistance with a dauntingly broad portfolio of Sustainable Bates programming. \u201cThey are the bridge between my office and the student body,\u201d Rosenbach explains. The four-year-old program extends a tradition of paid student environmental employees dating back at least to the 1980s (there\u2019s that decade again!) and Facility Services\u2019s squad of energy auditors.<\/p>\n
With recycling as their focus this year, the EcoReps specialize in short-term, high-profile projects. \u201cOne thing I\u2019m trying to do is bring visible events, outreach, to the campus,\u201d Rosenbach says. \u201cAnd another is to connect with the students in a meaningful way and have them take ownership and responsibility for projects. The EcoRep program hits both.\u201d<\/p>\n
She has structured the program such that while all members take part in all activities, each project has a leader for outreach and one for logistics. \u201cThey\u2019re learning how to work together, how to lead and delegate,\u201d says Rosenbach.\u201cThey made the trash audit work, and they had ownership of it. They were like, \u2018Look what we just did!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The students in the program, too, enjoy the benefit of being paid for work they feel passionate about, without an all-consuming time commitment. \u201cI wanted this to be a program where anybody could walk in and learn what they need to learn,\u201d says Rosenbach, who is proud of the diversity of interests the EcoReps bring to the program. \u201cThen they do the project, and continue on with the other things they like to do \u2014 sports, theater, all the different stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a social environment where students \u2014 like everyone else \u2014 are bombarded with information, policy theater is increasingly the best way to drive home a point.<\/p>\n
The team\u2019s other projects this year include the annual Trashion Show, a Harvest Dinner highlight in which students make clothes from discarded stuff and take it down the runway; a recycling competition, possibly against Bowdoin and Colby; a game-show-styled \u201ctrivia night\u201d; and a campy educational video being shot by Rob Little \u201912.<\/p>\n
There are behind-the-scenes activities as well, such as a training program with the first-years centers and a collaborative effort with athletics to reduce the use of bottled water. But it\u2019s the fun, splashy events that take priority.<\/p>\n
In a social environment where students \u2014 like everyone else \u2014 are bombarded with information, policy theater is increasingly the best way to drive home a point.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe trash audit was really successful because it drew people\u2019s attention,\u201d says Rosenbach. \u201cWe said, \u2018We\u2019re going through the trash,\u2019 and people were like, \u2018Wow, why?\u2019 It engaged them.\u201d<\/p>\n
And speaking of engagement, she adds, \u201cthere is nothing like watching your friend participate in something that you don\u2019t know about. That peer-to-peer education is really powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Being students themselves, the EcoReps help Rosenbach understand the best ways to get the word out. \u201cThey give me a lot of feedback,\u201d she says. For instance, they told her that \u201cwe don\u2019t read Announce e-mails\u201d \u2014 referring to the campus e-mail blasts designed to promote student events and awareness.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey really know what will work with their peers and what won\u2019t work.\u201d
\nAccentuating the positive is one of the things that work. \u201cYou have to get people from being na\u00efve to being active,\u201d without letting the immensity of environmental challenges intimidate them into apathy, Mulvihill says. \u201cIf you don\u2019t stay positive, you\u2019ll never change.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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