Month: April 2018 (Page 1 of 2)

Move out is around the corner! Packing up everything in your room might seem overwhelming. But Tufts’ Move Out stations, located Uphill and Downhill starting May 5th, make it easy to divert waste from the landfill when you move out of your residence hall. You can even win prizes just for donating!

The UPS Store can help you store or ship anything you will need for next year. They will even have your boxes waiting for you in your room, if you are living on-campus next fall.

Many other items- from clothing, to school supplies, home goods,  non-perishable food items, and unopened personal care items-can be donated to EASE, Project Soup, Book it Forward, and the Back-to-School Sale in the fall. You can also recycle plastic, glass, and metal;  Specialty Recycling (Textiles, E-waste & Universal Waste, plastic bags and soft plastics, and Dining hall flatware). You can even compost at our stations.

Find all Move Out information at go.tufts.edu/GetPacking!

This week, you’ll see a lot green, celebrating the earth. Businesses will promote their purported eco-friendly products wrapped in plastic, plastered with pictures of happy trees. Corporate greenwashing, or the practice of dispersing misleading claims about a product; service; or company to create the impression that it is more “environmentally friendly” than it actually is, has infiltrated Earth Day.

However, Earth Day did not begin with an obligatory promotion of trees. After Rachel Carson’s publication of Silent Spring, in 1962, an enormous oil spill in Santa Barbara in 1969, and greater awareness about the links between pollution and the health of living organisms, Senator Gaylord Nelson established the first Earth Day in 1970. Protests rallied “against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife,” according to Earth Day Network’s website.

These issues are relevant, even today, and show that sustainability is important in many parts of the world, not just in exclusive forests. While paying tribute to our trees and natural ecosystems is incredibly important today (and every day), we also need to recognize that our environment is intimately connected to justice and equality. Inevitably, climate change will make the Earth unlivable, especially for communities where people do not have the resources and are not allowed the agency to move away or curtail the effects of global warming. These are the same communities who have contributed the least to causing climate change, disproportionately communities of color and low-income areas. Seeking justice and equality is just as much a part of environmentalism as tree hugging.

Remember, on this Earth Day and every day, that environmental justice, climate justice, the ocean, the trees, the people, and the algae, are all important to protect and are all dependent on each other.

Watch this Grist.org video to learn more about environmental and climate justice: