looking for a fresh start this summer?

Lighter Footstep has a great, simple list for moving in a greener direction. With these Ten First Steps, you could easily make some smart and effective changes that will help the environment, help your wallet, and even help your waistline.

My personal goal for going greener this summer is buying a bike. I’ve been putting it off because I didn’t want to spend the money, but at the rate I keep filling up my teeny gas tank, I think a bike would pay for itself in no time. It’s about 6 miles to work from my house. Fortunately, there is a beautiful path along a canal that travels all the way into Princeton. Although riding to work will add a lot of travel time, it will also add fresh air and exercise–a great way to start the day.

What are your goals for the summer?

bike at westminster in the fall

nifty.

I came upon this while surfing for green things:

Sundance channel is hosting the first television program dedicated entirely to the environment. They’re already on their second season. Lots of great stuff in there. I was particularly interested in the What’s the Big Idea Contest. You can submit a “short film or photo with your big idea to make the world a cleaner, greener place and you could win the ultimate green grand prize.” Check it out!

I also like the eco-mmunity e-cards.  You can play around with the designs and create your own e-cards!

read all about it.

If United States citizens recycled just 10% of newspapers, approximately 25 million trees would be saved annually.

About 75% of what we throw out could be recycled into tomorrow’s news, books and household paper products. Once you’re done reading a book, donate it or sell it to a secondhand shop or used bookstore. Start the cycle over again and buy secondhand products whenever possible. Remember other paper products that come from trees, and conserve where possible.

[info from my hip eco calendar from half-price books. check out their b(eco)me bagless program and other great links.]

[picture from here]

thoughts on a meeting with the student senate.

Last night, Diana Kayes [Sustainability Coordinator] and I were given the opportunity to speak with the Student Senate at Westminster. Many strides have been taken to involve the Lawrenceville campus in the green efforts of the University, and it was our hope to drum up some involvement from the students in Princeton.

We were met with mixed responses from the roomful of 30-40 students who seemed to be surprised at this sudden push toward recycling. Here are some highlights from their comments:

• students often see trash in the recycling bins, so they figure why bother?
• there are not recycling bins near each trash can, so it’s inconvenient
• there are no recycling bins outside
• there is a lack of education concerning recycling–what can and cannot go in these bins?
• students are aware of the rumors that the recycling isn’t actually being recycled, so again, they figure, why bother?
• most were upset that double-sided printing and copying were not offered
• students who do make the effort to recycle are discouraged by the lack of involvement by both the university and fellow students

We took note of their concerns and addressed them as best we could. Some solutions included:

• ordering recycling bins, both for outside and inside, including individual dorm rooms and offices
• continuing to investigate recycling rumors to assure that materials that do make it into the bins are taken to be recycled
• informing that a double-sided printer is now in the library and will be configured soon for public use
• urging students to bring requests for double-sided copying to the foreground
• asking for volunteers to aid in educating the student body by hanging posters, helping to monitor recycling bins, etc.
• informing them of Rider’s involvement in Recycle Mania [more to come on that soon, I promise!]

I just want to remind the students that although it can be a very frustrating experience to talk about issues like this, especially when there may not be immediate results, it is a necessary means to an end. If we all work together to be more mindful of our wastefulness and take some responsibility for our actions, we can begin to see some real change on this campus.

[students, please feel free to comment or email. we would like to know your thoughts.]

Waster of the Week

The night staff left some paper waste on my desk this morning. Personally, I couldn’t stand the idea of 2 whole pictures of Tom and Katie going to waste. Luckily I run an art gallery out of my kitchen and I artified one of the pictures. The picture, “Tom and Katie in Love,” (scroll down to picture 4 to see my Andy Warhol) is currently priced at $100. Money from the picture sale will be given to a Green cause or Rider so that we can have Westminster start recycling their white paper a little more quickly.

A paper peacock.

“o frabjous day, callooh, callay!”*

…we chortled in our joy!

two, monumental occurrences have, well…occurred this week.

[drum roll, please.]

1. Paperwaste has been linked to Rider’s student portal. You’ll find the link under the Recycle Mania competition info [more to come on that, by the way].

2. We just installed a double-sided printer for public use. It still has to be configured in the Pharos printing system, but things are looking up. Now we can finally say YES when students ask for duplexing.  Here’s a big THANK YOU to library chair, Mi-Hye Chyun, for making this happen.

*from lewis carroll’s “jabberwocky”

[ps- jabberwocky fans should look at this too]

Firefox Printing Tip

If you want to print something out from Firefox next time, rather than just blindly clicking print, try hitting print preview. Print preview not only allows you to see extra blank pages you don’t need to print, it also gives you the option to scale documents. If two pages of your document can easily fit on one page, do it and save some paper!

Don’t just print!

Use print preview.

Can you fit two pages of that Mapquest printout onto one page???

Sometimes I am sad.

I don’t like to be sad.

I like to skip about in my hum-drum, little life with an air of joy and contentedness. But sometimes people can really get me down…

an all-too familiar sight…

no. please, NOOOOOOOOO!

….not Haydn’s ‘Nun beut die Flur’! People, doesn’t such a masterpiece deserve a little more respect than to be so casually tossed into the trash alongside your chewing gum and your scraps of dignity??

And THEN, as if that wasn’t traumatizing enough, my eyes catch sight of a hastily stashed pile of papers protruding from underneath the printer….

30 pages. A perfectly pristine article left at the printer.

Here are some suggestions, students, if you accidentally print out an article that you don’t need:
1. try offering it to some of your other classmates who may have not printed it yet
2. give it to the teacher as an extra copy in case someone forgets to bring it to class
3. staple it, and put it on the free table outside in the lobby because someone else who is interested might want to read it

[please feel free to offer any other suggestions!]

New Page

We’ve added a page about the characters in the comic.
(Evidently this post is very dry.)
Check out the page. Peace.

Comic Characters PAGE.

paper offender roams the streets of princeton.

36 pages of wasted paper were found today at the printing station.

Preliminary investigation revealed that an unidentified perpetrator was attempting to print some driving directions off of mapquest, leaving behind a disgraceful paper trail. Fortunately for us, the criminal wasn’t the sharpest pencil in the box. Their home address was printed on each of these sheets.

Below is a dramatization.

You laugh now, Perp…

…but paper waste is no laughing matter.