Day 16: Take Part
Name: Emi
School: Rice University
Greenest
Dear Mr. Brown, Ms. Boorom, Ms. Bogar, and Mr. Thacker,
I wanted to talk to you about an exciting opportunity to improve Rice's current recycling culture
on campus with the help of my ENST 302 group, Recycle 50K!
As you may know, our group is currently working with Mr. Franco and the grounds crew to
install outdoor recycling bins on our beautiful campus. We're hoping that by installing recycling bins
outside, we might be able to improve the visibility of our great recycling program and increase the rate
at which recyclables find their way to Waste Management. It's a prospect we're all incredibly
enthusiastic about and are eagerly working towards a more green campus next semester!
Part of our effort not only includes working towards installing outdoor recycling bins, but also
revolves around educating the whole of the Rice community on our recycling efforts. Rice students are
continuously getting in the know about our single-stream recycling program here, and we're excited to
expanded upon this. But who we also want to include are our wonderful project is the staff here at Rice.
Rice is about to see a ton more changes in the upcoming year, and we want to make sure everyone,
both Rice students and staff, are on board!
One of the things our group was contemplating was creating a sustainability education program
for the staff members on campus. What this would involve is two one-hour sessions at the end of the
semester that educate our staff members on the importance of going green. We would present, with
the aid of PowerPoint, why sustainability is increasingly important. We would incorporate several slides
talking about the growing need for sustainable resources and how Rice can play a part in this effort. Our
ultimate goal would be to share with staff members our goal of attaining a reduced-waste campus and a
holistic, sustainable lifestyle.
The reason for this new initiative in part stems from the upcoming installation of outdoor
recycling bins, but also stems from the current recycling culture at Rice. Currently, Rice students and
staff seem to be relatively unaware of the importance of recycling, and while Rice students have
opportunities to learn of sustainability, I want to make sure that staff have the same opportunities.
There have also been a few isolated instances where the recycling program might not have been
fully taken advantage of by the Rice staff. In one case, I saw a Rice dining crew member empty out the
recycling bin into the trash bin. In another instance, a morning cleaning lady emptied out the bottles
from the recycling bin outside my door into the general trash bin. Rather than this being a systemic issue,
these cases might highlight an incongruency in understanding of sustainability and its importance. I'm
hoping that by providing an educational opportunity to the staff members at Rice, we might be able to
further the campus' sustainability efforts hand in hand.
Part of what this effort would entail is the approval of H&D to provide this class to staff
members. We would pick a date that would be compatible with both cleaning members and our student
volunteers and give the presentation on four separate occasions - twice in English and twice and Spanish.
This way, we would be able to facilitate any scheduling conflicts and overcome any language and culture
barriers. One of the members of our group, Tierra, speaks Spanish, and we have several resources where
we can work on a fluid translation of our presentation.
We believe that Rice's sustainability efforts, and indeed the environment, would benefit
tremendously from such an educational opportunity. Even if our effort only makes an impact on a
handful of our valuable staff members, we're hoping that this change of habit will prevent tons of waste
from entering the linear waste system that so plagues our culture today. After all, if one person recycles
for their entire life, 75% of that person's waste could avoid the landfill.
Please let us know if we can make this vision happen. The Recycle 50K team is on board and
ready to help share the word. We're tremendously excited about the prospects of spreading the word of
the importance of recycling, and even more excited about making Rice a part of the global movement
towards zero-waste.
Thank you so much for your help and time,
Emi LaFountain
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