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| CU student taking part in making campus more sustainable |
University of Colorado Boulder strives to become a more sustainable campus but what exactly does that mean? Sustainability is defined as something that saves the campus money at the same time as it benefits the planet and people, or having the planet, people, and profit all come together and benefit each other.
On campus, many things are sustainable. One of the biggest programs is the campus recycling program.
The recycling program began in 1976, and it has made lots of progress since then. But, we need more progress in the next 5 years. Recycling program manager Dan Baril stated, “We actually have a campus wide goal that’s in the campus master plan to reach a 90% diversion rate by 2020.” In order to achieve this, Dan said that we are going to have to make some drastic changes.
One of the newest programs that CU is trying to start up is composting. In addition to recycling, composting is the next program that will help increase the diversion rate. The environmental center has started to place compost bins in the bathrooms around campus, so used paper towels can be composted. Dan also said, “In those same buildings (that the compost bins are in) we’re actutally telling people that they can bring their food waste from their offices to those restrooms as well”.
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| Composting bin seen in the rec center on campus |
Another effort CU began is something called ‘can pairity’, where trash bins are being paired with recycling bins so students don’t throw away things that can be recycled into a landfill trash bin. Dan stated that since they started can pairity, they tripled the outdoor recycling. That was huge progress, so they’re also trying to implement it inside buildings too.
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| Can parity |
Overall, CU is working in many ways to make campus a more sustainable place and hopefully by 2020 we will have a 90% diversion rate!
