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Going Green on Campus

Going Green on Campus
2/26/2013
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Carly Gerber

Making the decision to go green is not only environmentally sound but cost effective and healthier. Here are a few tips you can take to go green on your campus!

  • Choose CFLs (a.k.a. compact fluorescent lamps): They use 75 percent less energy to produce the same amount of illumination and last eight to 15 times longer than incandescent light bulbs.
  • Start recycling! Once you start recycling, you’ll notice how much can be recycled – your recycling bin may be fuller than your trash can!
  • Buy used textbooks. Buying or renting used books is much cheaper than buying new books, plus it eliminates trash in the landfills. You can buy and sell used books at your campus book store, as well as rent them from sites like Bookrenter or Chegg.
  • Many of you have already signed leases for next year but that may mean filling your new space with couches, TVs, kitchenware, etc. Instead of going to retail stores to buy these items, you can go to websites like Craigslist, Gigoit, Freecycle and eBay. Remember, every time you buy something new, you’re adding to your carbon footprint so buy used when possible!
  • Use recycled printing paper. Recycled paper may cost slightly more but it saves tress, energy, water, is a pollution reducer and the use of harmful chemicals and bleaching are much less than that of virgin paper production.
  • Don’t drive to class – walk, bike or use the campus/public bus system instead. When you drive to class, you waste time trying to find a parking spot, increase the pollution in the air and spend unnecessary money when you pay for parking.
  • Use a reusable water bottle. Not only will you be saving cheddar by not buying packs of water bottles but you’ll be decreasing the amount of plastic that ends up in landfills.

Have any other tips for going green on campus? Leave a comment with your suggestions!

Carly Gerber is majoring in journalism at Columbia College Chicago. She loves fashion and hopes to cover the topic for a Chicago-area magazine. In her free time, she focuses on her blog, loves making jewelry and spending time on Pinterest and Pose. She hopes to use this blog to guide and relate to its followers: college students like herself!

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