What does it mean to support sustainability? How do people maintain and upkeep this idea? Is it obtainable to maintain even?

From day 1 of my first semester on Penn State’s Campus, the amount of recycling, green energy and environmental efforts made by this campus is incredibly noticeable. There are trash cans everywhere (obviously to motivate people to clean up after themselves) but even so, there’s more than just singular “trash” cans but alongside them, inside of the buildings, there are other bins for separating plastics, aluminum foil, compost, paper, glass, cans, etc.

Even on my daily drive to campus, I drive down Squirrel Hill which faces Mount Nittany hospital and I’m faced with solar panels the hillside ahead. Once parked, many of the Cata Buses claim a sign of “powered 100% by clean natural gas.” When riding the bus stop on Curtin Road, the window shelter hut has solar panels up on top of it. In my mid daybreak, when I study in the Biobehavioral Health Building, the lights are always off in the bathroom until a sensor picks up that I’m walking inside.

All of these are just a few examples of what I’ve observed on campus for Penn State to attempt to be more sustainable and support more green energy. Honestly, if you haven’t noticed even the examples I’ve shown you, spend extra time observing. Whether your on Penn State’s campus or visiting a friend at another college look for the minute details that attempt to be less wasteful than the conventional ways of using energy and creating waste.

So really, what does it mean to be sustainable? Well, a quick Merriam-Webster dictionary search gives me the first definition  “capable of being sustained,” to which then the second definition listed is, “of relating to, or being a method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged.” For all intents and purposes, I think I’d like to focus more on the second definition since it’s simply more descriptive.

The second definition focuses on the idea we should use materials for a purpose that leaves them to last over time. Not just so it’s a one and done deal but so that we can continue to reshape and reuse the elements that make up that item. For example, think about notebook paper. When you write on a sheet of paper and use that sheet for your own purpose, once you’re down with it you’re done with it, you can’t write over it again. In order to dispose of it, you might throw it out, recycle or burn it. The definition stated above wants you to really focus on disposing of the paper you don’t need anymore in a way that it can be reshaped and reused again. This is the basic principle of a resource (such as paper) being sustainable.

Something I learned in my Climate Change and Ecosystems class last semester was obviously the climate is changing. Here in State College, the winters have significantly changed from when I was little. The winters are either mild or bitterly cold, not so much at the perfect temperature for snowfall like they used to be. We seem to receive more rain than snow and I don’t even think some animals around here hibernate anymore. At least the bear in my neighborhood still shows up throughout the whole winter now instead of disappearing for 4 months. The most important part of Climate Change though is realizing how wasteful our society is. We attempt to reuse items but ultimately we live in a society that has a buy, use and throw-away mentality. With how wasteful we are, a lot of us are unaware of the effects this will bring. I’m not even aware really of what kind of effect I have every time I give away a styrofoam box to a customer at work instead of pushing for the restaurant I work at to use cardboard boxes or something less harmful.

Now I don’t mean to make this about Climate Change, but it’s important to think about when considering why should we be converting to a more sustainable society. Really, in all, the purpose of this is to be less wasteful and to use fewer disposable materials to live our lives in convenience. if we’re really being honest, I’d say most of us live in such a materialistic and dispoable world just because of the simple convenience of it.

You were probably first exposed to ideas of sustainability hopefully in your house (hoping your family had a “recycling bin” when you were young) or in school where hopefully also included practices of recycling and finishing all your food at lunch to be less wasteful. Once reaching university, maybe you’ve only ever been exposed to those simple practices of sustainability. Colleges are tending to be more “green” as this seems to be a rising concern for the students they are educating. In an article (Why College Campuses are Going Green) by Alison Murtaugh, she summarizes information about other universities and why their mission is to become greener. The general consensus seems to be is they see it as part of the future and better for the common good of the planet. Some universities seem to be using their sustainability efforts as a recruiting mechanism for more students to attend their schools.

From the class I had mentioned, being more sustainable has started to become more of a goal for myself after becoming more aware of how truly wasteful I am. To see big institutions like college campuses want to make this change is pretty remarkable and is probably one of the biggest motivators to change political policy as well. As I go into more depth in this blog, I’ll be focusing mainly on the sustainable efforts made by universities. This will be in good spirits to see the inspiration college campuses plant inside their students to become more thoughtful human beings.

Until next time, when deciding to throw away whatever trash you have, make it your goal to look up for an extra second. Don’t just throw whatever you have into the next trash bin but look up, see read the signs and throw away your trash in the rightful bin. At least attempt to make a guess for it.