http://https://youtu.be/hKFXT7EP8Kw

Hello everyone, we are the Men In Green, a team of four strangers turned best friends who had no idea what they were getting into at the beginning of the year. From left to right our names are Abhilash Menon, Jayden Tomlinson, Jaedon Mast, and Luke Collins. We were very hesitant going into this project but we were thoroughly excited to make a genuine impact on the environment. Rather than simply learning about what’s wrong with the environment through textbooks or presentations, we enjoyed positively impacting the environment through hands-on learning and service. Our mentors were Veronica Erenberg and Doug Reigle. This is an experience that has educated us in many ways and we’re going to use this project as a way of spreading awareness and a reminder to always stay involved in the betterment of the environment.

Our Service Project: Weeding Out The Bad Habits

We were assigned to the Berks County Conservation District and worked alongside Veronica Erenberg and Doug. We worked in the city of Reading at a homeless shelter called Opportunity House. The shelter had about half an acre of land next door that their residents could use to get some fresh air. Part of that area contained a little garden that was used in order to help provide fresh produce to the shelter. However, due to the Covid pandemic the garden had fallen into ruin and Wire Weed had taken over. Wire Weed is one of the hardest weeds to combat because it can’t be killed with pesticides, you have to actually dig them out and pull the weed out by hand. We then covered the dirt with hay to help protect it from the elements. We spent about 3 weeks doing this task with Veronica educating us about the goals the Conservation District has for the city, how they want to bring awareness to everyone and teach people some basic gardening principles.  Before we left, we also worked on raking leaves and other menial tasks to clean up the area after fall and prep it for the winter. Then due to some technical issues that were out of control we had to transfer our service to something on the Berks campus. For our last two hours, we worked at the green house, which is adjacent to campus. They were conducting an experiment about the best way to kill Lantern Flies, so we got to learn about experiments and see the viability of different solutions. We unwrapped and cleaned up since the experiments were mostly finished since it was getting cold. There were several other petty tasks that we completed but it was another fruitful experience as we were able to get involved in current issues and learn about ways to fix them.

Before and After at Opportunity House 

Our Research: Food Waste 

Due to another mishap and miscommunication our service project didn’t correlate directly with our research, but our research component was done on food waste. Looks unimportant right? There’s unlimited food, nothing harmful with a little waste, right? Wrong. There are two types of food waste, there’s the waste that comes directly from producers due to the inability to pass the tests allowing for the items to be sold in stores. Secondly, there’s the waste that comes from the consumer, due to various reasons such as expiry and just simple carelessness and indifference. In the U.S, 40% of all food produced goes to waste. And 95% of the waste ends up in landfills… That’s easy to say, but what ends up in the landfill’s releases greenhouse gasses, especially methane, that are extremely harmful to the atmosphere, which is already in a deteriorating state. There are plenty of solutions to this issue but what’s stopping us is the financial aspect. It’s super expensive to make the necessary changes and many manufacturers will suffer terrible losses if they dial back the rate of production. Farms need to produce less and adjust their supply to the demand rather than release excessively. The standards are also extremely high for foods that aren’t necessarily bad but just look a certain way. On top of this, store standards are also extremely high, so they only put out the best of the best, the consumers also only pick out what’s most visually appealing from the batch. You see how this domino effect just tarnishes possibilities of reducing food waste? A verbally miniscule issue but in reality, something that needs strict, decisive action. There are many solutions currently available; donating to food shelters, to the homeless, and the main environmental use, using the waste to fertilize soil. Once these options become more mainstream, we can finally start taking bigger steps toward a world with little to no food waste.

View our narrated research presentation: food waste presentation 

MSU Collaboration 

Another aspect of our EACAP project that we got to experience was working with a team from Moscow State University in Russia. It was a very interesting and unexpected collaboration especially with everything going on in the world right now, but I think it was a good experience for the most part. We did numerous “zoom” calls talking about our research and projects. On their end they were researching the effects of a nearby cement plant on the soil in the area. Even though are project and research weren’t the same as the MSU team we still got a lot of meaningful conversation done. It wasn’t the easiest collaboration because there is such a big time difference between our two countries but overall I think everyone in both groups got some positive things out of this collaboration.

Last Words…

We are truly grateful to have had this opportunity to make a genuinely positive impact on the world, no matter how little it may be. It will be an experience that we never forget as we had no idea what we were signing up for when we first chose this course. We will be forever grateful to our professor Dr. Mahsa Kazempour, for allowing us to use her connections to interact with communities around us and find ways in which we can engage in work that helps provide a cleaner, safer environment.

Thank you

Miscellaneous Pictures