Tanvi Sood
Staff Writer
The College of Wooster celebrated its first ever Reduce Reuse Recycle (RRR) Week Oct. 21-27. The week was aimed at spreading sustainability awareness and practice among the campus community. RRR also included a heavy stress on individual-impact sustainability plans.
Hoping to diversify the events so that a larger section of the student body could be involved, RRR’s organizers planned activities ranging from academic lectures to Craft Night. However, the most impact was felt on Tuesday, when Campus Dining surprised students with a menu of locally made cheeses and breads.
Though campus sustainability initiatives are sometimes overlooked by the community when it comes to individual change, the RRR Week went into the specifics of student life to draw attention to their cause. Since this is the tenth annual “Campus Sustainability Day”, SB Loder, a recent graduate from the College and Sustainability Director, said “I thought it was about time we joined in and I’m so glad we could make this happen.” Loder ran the Sustainability House in her senior year and worked on many “mini projects,” one of them was the compost bins all over campus. She is now on the environmental staff at the College and works as the intersection between staff, faculty and students to create a more sustainable community.
With the Scot Center up and running and the Board of Trustees promising to convert the coal plant to a cleaner energy source, it seems apt for such an initiative to come in at this time. “This is a time to mobilize the forces by making the individual more aware about everyday consumption, since the College is still coping with the financial aftermath of these two big projects,” says Loder.
The week also included an all-dorm recycling competition, the winner of which will be announced on Saturday’s Vegan Co-Op in Babcock Hall. Overall, the week worked well to bring the students, staff and faculty together to engage in more sustainable practices, all in an attempt to create a more environmentally conscious college community.
