Students were able to discover different ways groups on campus were instituting sustainability efforts.
The Associated Students Sustainability program and Chico State’s Institute for Sustainable Development held the fourth annual Campus Sustainability Day Oct. 20 in the Free Speech Area.
Many of the students who helped put on the event were part of A.S. Sustainability or other organizations on campus.
Reyanna Garcia, an A.S. Sustainability intern, organized the event and was very pleased with the overall turnout.
The participation was better than ever, with lots of great things going on, she said.
“Green Campus was hosting Take the Stairs Day and we had our annual veggie feed hosted by the Environmental Action and Resource Center,” Garcia said.
Haley Gilmore was at the event, promoting “Take the Stairs Day.”
“It’s an awareness campaign to teach people about those benefits of taking the stairs instead of the elevator,” Gilmore said. “We’re trying to focus on energy efficiency and conservation.”
Students were out signing people up to commit to take the stairs for just one day.
After doing some research, Gilmore discovered it takes .7 kilowatt hours of energy per elevator trip.
“We have people sign this pledge saying that they will take the stairs for just one day, instead of the elevator,” Gilmore said. “We then take the number of pledges we get and multiply it by one trip in an elevator and get the energy savings.”
Last semester 497 students signed the Take the Stairs Pledge, she said. Gilmore considered this phenomenal and expected a higher turnout this year.
There were other student organizations present to promote sustainable efforts such as the B.Y.O. Cup campaign, which aims to promote awareness toward the amount of waste that using a disposable cup produces.
The campaign is telling people to bring a reusable cup or mug from home to use instead of the disposable cups that are provided by the school, said Canyon Miller, an A.S. Sustainability intern.
“It’s mostly about paper waste, but also that there is a plastic lining inside the cups, which makes the cups non-recyclable,” he said.
Student groups weren’t the only ones to participate this year in the event. Student Computer Services and University Printing Services also had a table for the affair.
Student Computer Services has implemented a product called Power Save, said Student Computing staffer Ryan Richter. The program monitors power usage in campus computers and activates computers or puts them in low power states, depending on use.
“We’ve deployed Power Save at a number of campus computer labs,” Richter said. “I think that it’s totally worth it to save the power.”
Alexander Maier can be reached at
amaier@theorion.com
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