There’s no getting around it: Portland State loves to profess its love for sustainability. It’s too bad that the school isn’t doing anything to help 90 percent of its students learn all that much about it.
There’s no getting around it: Portland State loves to profess its love for sustainability. It’s too bad that the school isn’t doing anything to help 90 percent of its students learn all that much about it.
For the past few weeks, PSU has been taking part in a competition called “RecycleMania.” This nationwide competition is geared toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing the overall recycling rate at participating universities. PSU has combined it with its “Conservation Challenge” in an attempt to stir up interest.
Thus far, PSU’s “Eco Reps” (residence hall students trained in sustainability and all that comes with it) have hosted several events to educate students living on campus about how to reduce, reuse and recycle. Alongside other departments, they’ve also created new signs detailing what is and is not recyclable. They are also responsible for the largely consolidated waste collection through their “It’s All in the Hall” program, which moved garbage from the classroom to the landfill/compost/recycling units with which students have become familiar.
All of these programs have had their effects: Out of 605 schools competing, PSU is in 169th place overall, putting it in the top third of competitors. In the per-capita recycling competition, PSU is in 212th place, and it’s estimated that it has increased its recycling rate by about 2 percent. So, they’re doing all right. They’re just not reaching the biggest audience of all: commuters.
Most of the ongoing events and programs have been focused on the residence halls. Given that this is where the Eco Reps are centered, and that this is the easiest group to isolate, it makes sense that they’d focus on it first.
However, they’ve focused on residents almost to the exclusion of commuter students.
Of the 12 events the Eco Reps planned for the Conservation Challenge, eight take place in residence halls. The rest have not been advertised enough to be noticed, and they’re more of a token effort than anything.
These remaining events include such things as “Getting Caught Green-Handed,” wherein Eco Reps supposedly comb the campus for people engaging in sustainable behavior to reward them for their efforts and “Hands On Composting!,” which is supposed to teach students how to compost—but whoops! It looks like you can only sign up for that event if you live on campus. Not exactly commuter-friendly; but then, why should commuters learn about composting? It’s not like it’ll affect PSU’s numbers for the RecycleMania competition.
That’s where PSU’s recycling problems lie. For all the efforts PSU makes to reach the easiest group—on-campus residents—it makes virtually no effort to educate its commuter students, who make up almost 90 percent of its student base. What effort is made is through signage and attempts to make it convenient to recycle—passive learning at best, and that’s only if people pay attention at all.
This makes it difficult for commuter students to feel as involved in campus recycling efforts. And when you don’t feel involved, it’s much easier to just disregard an effort entirely. This might be why so few commuter students take advantage of the reuse and recycling services offered by the university, including the ReUse Room in Cramer Hall.
PSU’s sustainability programs need to focus on all PSU students, not just residents. Sure, it’s good for PSU’s numbers when students recycle on campus, but there’s so much more to do. Students need to know how to recycle at home or how to create their own compost. A sustainable university should offer all its students a chance to learn how to reduce, reuse and recycle at home and after they leave school.
It’s about more than just making our numbers look impressive. What good do the sustainability programs at PSU do for Oregon—and the rest of the world—if students leave without learning good sustainable habits? And for all the efforts PSU has made to passively educate its students, it has little to show for it. Outside of Portland, recycling and sustainable practices generally flounder in Oregon.
So while PSU may do well in RecycleMania, it is still lacking in the education it gives its students.
Without a lasting program in place to help the majority of students learn sustainable practices, PSU’s programs will ultimately fail to help its students become environmentally responsible members of society. And that is a greater loss than placing last in this competition could ever be.
