It’s So Easy Bein’ Green
In 1970, during the first season of Sesame Street, Kermit the Frog lamented that It’s Not Easy Bein’ Green, but in 2008, showing a commitment to preserving the environment and its natural resources couldn’t be much easier – or important. For that reason, Rider University and the Energy and Sustainability Steering Committee (ESSC) will celebrate its first Campus Sustainability Day on Wednesday, October 22, with a full day of green games, prizes and giveaways, as well as an informative guest speaker and movies on both the Lawrenceville and Princeton campuses.
Highlighting the day will be a talk on eco-capitalism by Tom Szaky, cofounder and CEO of TerraCycle, Inc., the producer of the world’s first products made from, and packaged, in “garbage,” as well as the debut of the Quench water-filtration bottle refill stations. Szaky and the Quench stations will be on both campuses.
“We hope to educate the Rider community about sustainability and bring some of these issues to light, said Melissa Ross Greenberg, Rider’s sustainability coordination manager. “I strongly encourage everyone to come hear Tom Szaky, because what TerraCycle has managed to do is fascinating.”
Szaky, who was born in Hungary in 1982, immigrated with his family to Canada when he was seven years old. He started his first business at the age of 14, and came to the United States in 2001 to attend Princeton University. He took a leave of absence the following year to dedicate his full-time energies to starting TerraCycle, beginning as a two-man outfit in the crowded basement of an old office building.
Since then, TerraCycle has become the global leader in “upcycling,” a component of sustainability in which waste materials are used to provide new products. Szaky’s innovative company enjoys sponsored waste partnerships with some of the biggest brands in the United States, ranging from Capri Sun to Oreo to Stonyfield Yogurt, and is distributed by some of America’s largest retailers, including Wal-Mart, Target and Home Depot. TerraCycle has been featured on CBS’s 60 Minutes and in The Wall Street Journal.
Dr. Laura Hyatt, associate professor of Biology, says that TerraCycle’s business model is “fantastic,” particularly because it is based on erasing faulty conceptions of what actually happens to garbage once it’s disposed of. “It’s becoming increasingly clear that ‘waste’ really isn’t – it’s just not useful in its current form,” Hyatt explained. “Given that there’s no such place as ‘away’ – as in ‘throwing things away’ – it’s in the best interests of society to figure out how to repurpose our waste and to design products so that they can be upcycled, rather than down- or recycled and that waste is minimized.”
Szaky will discuss TerraCycle: Sustainable Business Success on the Princeton campus at Thayer Lounge from 4 to 5 p.m. on Wednesday, and again on the Lawrenceville campus from 6 to 7 p.m. in the Science and Technology Center, Room 102.
Greenberg also said that four new Quench water filtration and refill stations are being tested this week, with two on each campus. “We’re giving away BPA-free water bottles on Wednesday as part of Campus Sustainability Day in order to encourage people to use the Quench stations and reduce the number of disposable water bottles used on campus,” Greenberg said of the refillable bottles, which are manufactured free of the organic compound Bisphenol A, or BPA, suspected of being harmful to humans. “We have two Quench stations in Lawrenceville, with one in the BLC on the second floor, near the information booth, and one in the SRC Fitness Center, and two at Westminster, including one in the student center near the commuter lounge and one in the basement of Talbott Library.”
According to the Quench Web site, the manufacturing, processing and transporting of bottled water burns millions of barrels of oil, generates millions of tons of greenhouse gasses and sends an estimated 38 billion plastic water bottles to landfills throughout the world every year.
The Quench refill stations, which Greenberg said have become popular at a number of other universities, will occupy these spots on campus from Monday, October 20, until Friday, October 24. After sampling the chilled, filtered water, members of the campus community are invited to share their opinion of the product through the survey linked here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=3lHKmG62RmcQ5yIhI0BtGw_3d_3d.
From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Student Resource Center Lobby at Lawrenceville, there will be tables and other displays featuring a number of eco-friendly video games designed to test players’ knowledge of conservation and sustainability issues. Test Your Water Sense is a Pac-Man-style game that lets the user navigate a labyrinth in order to accumulate points and get to safe zones, where players answer water-consumption questions for bonuses while avoiding a set of menacing water-based predators. Another video game, Water Dash, features a penguin attempting to catch gallons of clean water dropping from above, while attempting to avoid drops contaminated with water-borne diseases like cholera.
There will also be a Spin the Wheel – Sustainability Quests contest, as well as an information/educational game developed by students from Hyatt’s seminar on the biological effects of global climate change, entitled Life: The Green Edition. “They have invented a game that teaches about the causes of climate change, the consequences of climate change, and the contributions that students can make that will feed back positively on climate change,” Hyatt explained. “The group worked very hard to devise activities that are relevant to the Rider student experience. Essentially, we hope to increase understanding that translates into action.”
The afternoon event in Lawrenceville will also feature presentations by the Philadelphia Gas Works Green team and UNICCO Service Company about waste and recycling, and a flat screen showing the 2006 film Planet Earth.
The Fall Earth Festival will highlight Campus Sustainability Day at the Great Plain on the Princeton Campus, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., where there will be games and prizes, as well as BPA-free bottle giveaways.
Hyatt says the Energy and Sustainability Steering Committee ultimately aims to enhance student awareness of the impacts of institutional actions, as well as their own. “The ESSC wants to give graduates an experience from an academic and social perspective that enables them to make choices that impact the sustainability of the broader world,” she explained. “Climate change is probably the No. 1 social, economic, scientific and political issue in the coming decades and Rider would be remiss if it weren’t addressing it in a systematic way.”
Other activities and displays that will be visible during Campus Sustainability Day include the construction of a giant bottle sculpture by The Sustainable Rider student organization that represents the amount of water used by an average person per day, as well as a group of students from the Science Learning Community who are rolling out a lake-monitoring project who will be in search of volunteers.
“There will also be information about courses explicitly related to sustainability, and a new grant program ESSC is rolling out to support sustainability activities on campus,” Hyatt explained.
“I am green and it’ll do fine,” crooned Kermit to conclude his now-famous ode to personal identity. “It’s beautiful, and I think it’s what I want to be.” At Rider University, that idea is catching on.
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