Going Green

I have always view SMU as a school that is always changing, and up to date on what is going on. However, I am not usually one to complain, but I have to say that I am pretty disappointed with our school's recycling efforts.

I know that when someone starts talking about the environment it is so easy to just turn away and think those silly tree huggers. And honestly, I used to not care about our environment at all. But after my environmental science class in high school, living in Colorado (the 2nd "greenest" state in the country), and going to a high school where we were forced to reduce, reuse, and recycle, I have become a big advocate.

So, before you stop reading here are some things to keep in mind:

* 500,000 Trees are cut down per WEEK for the Sunday paper ALONE
*The average person uses 680 pounds of paper a year
* A single plastic bottle will remain in a landfill for up to 100 years
* Styrofoam will NEVER leave a landfill- instead, it leaks toxic chemicals into the environment
*Every year we make enough plastic film to shrink-wrap Texas.


There are some bins around campus--take the extra 5 steps to put your plastic bottle of water in there.

There are recycling bins in the trash rooms. It's not that hard.

Turn out your lights when you leave.

Un-plug electronics your not using.

Turn off a dripping faucet.

Recycle paper, cans, bottles, cardboard, cereal boxes, envelopes, magazines, newspapers...the list goes on...

This is not a political issue. Do your part. :)


Here are places to find out some more facts, where some of mine came from:

http://www.oberlin.edu/recycle/facts.html
http://loveplanetearth.blogspot.com/2007/09/big-picture.html