In the dorms at UW-Madison, students are given three bins for disposal. One bin is for your standard garbage, things like leftover food, old wrappers, etc. Another bin is for your standard recycling, the plastics, cardboards, and papers of the world. Finally, a third bin is used for cans and bottles.
While the idea is present to recycle and be a "green" campus, students don't really put this idea into motion and remember the three R's song taught to us by Disney channel. By this, I mean students don't care where their trash ends up, as long as it's not in their own room, which needs to change.
Per usual, I was daydreaming in my calculus lecture this past week and thought about how simply not recycling can have an impact. In my life, I have driven past a few landfills, and in each instance, I remember feeling some kind of remorse, and guilt for not recycling. When this happens, I tend to think about the future, if people don't dispose of their trash properly.
Moreover, I think about my future kids and the impact that it could have on them someday. Without reusing products, it's likely that the future generations could run out of resources that can be reused, and should we continue to dispose of our waste in the wrong manner, more and more land will be used by landfills, which doesn't serve an immediate problem, but could be disastrous for future generations.
Recently, I was sitting with my cousin, who is a freshman here at UW, and asked him why he didn't utilize his trash cans in the right way; his answer was simple, "It doesn't affect me." So that leads to the question, what needs to be done to make students care?
The most simple answer is to keep on reminding students that this earth is permanent, and we must take care of it, but words can only do so much.
Now, I don't mean to sound like a tree-hugger or hippie, but we need to protect the planet. In order for that to happen, it starts with us not just agreeing with people who plead for environmental protection but to join those people and live out what we agree with. The best way to do this starts with daily habits, such as simply putting your waste into the right bin, and thinking about what you consume, and hoping other people catch on to what you do.
Making UW green again is a tough task to take on, but taking two extra seconds to throw that Gatorade bottle into the recycling will have bigger impact over time, and just as a giant Redwood Tree grows from a small seed, the habit of recycling and consuming less can pay huge dividends towards changing the environmental habits at UW-Madison.