Have you started your spring cleaning yet? Need a wardrobe refresher? Come to the Tufts Eco-Reps Clothing Swap during Earth Fest on Friday, April 22nd from 11:00 AM-2:00 PM! The Eco-Reps have been collecting clothes for months and want to get you styled up in time for spring.
Come join the Tufts Sustainability Collective and Tufts Eco-Reps for Earth Fest! A week long extravaganza of incredible events to bring environmental consciousness to the Tufts community. Check out the week’s schedule below or view the entire series on Facebook:
Tuesday, 4/19: Environmental Justice 101 Panel
7:30pm-9pm, Alumnae Lounge
Join the Tufts Sustainability Collective for a panel with four amazing members of the Tufts Community: Environmental Justice 101! We will touch on the intersection of environmental and social issues, climate change, accountability, policy, and what we as students can do to combat these issues. Discussion with Q&A to follow!
Our Panelists:
Thursday 4/21: Jumbo Wild Screening with Tufts Film Series
7pm, Barnum 104
The Tufts Sustainability Collective and Tufts Film Series present a screening of the Patagonia documentary Jumbo Wild! Learn about environmental conservation efforts in the Jumbo Valley. The Tufts Eco-Reps will be hosting a Clothing Swap and Jumbo Mountain too, so don’t forget to clean out your closet before you stop by!
Friday 4/22: Earth Day Fair
11am-2pm, Academic Quad
Come out on Earth Day and celebrate our planet with Tufts Sustainability Collective and the Tufts Eco-Reps! A clothing swap, food, prizes, music and a host of student groups, organizations and departments will be present for the culmination of Earth Fest 2016!
..and don’t miss Jumbo Mountain! Facilities and Save That Stuff have collaborated with the Tufts Eco-Reps to show you how much trash the 120 students in Houston produce in just 2 days. We’re guessing it will be larger.
Tufts will also be hosting the GRAND OPENING of a new bicycle repair station at the Campus Center!
Expect to see:
Tufts Mountain Club
Tufts Eco Reps and their clothing swap!
Tufts GreECO Reps
TuftsRecycles!
Tufts Climate Action
Tufts Veg Society
LCS
Tufts Bikes
Tufts Food for Thought
Jp Licks
Danish Pastry House
Flatbread Somerville
GlobeMed at Tufts
Tufts Garden Club
Tufts Literacy Corps
…and many more!
Why does this popular adage seem to be the linchpin of all sustainability efforts? Let’s begin by defining “sustainability”, a buzzword we all love to use but might not always know how to articulate. According to the World Commission on Environment and Development:
Sustainable development should “meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
Nowhere in this definition is “buy less” or “use less” explicitly stated, yet there seems to be a general understanding that we just might need to cut back on something if we are to sustain healthy and equitable societies.
The desire to consider how our lifestyles impact other humans, animals, and resources should spark excitement and collaboration amongst those of us eager to preserve the people’s and planet’s prosperity. Unfortunately, it’s easy to see the distressing statistics indicating an inevitable climate apocalypse and resort to crossing our fingers and hoping for the best.
It’s true. A zero carbon footprint is virtually unattainable and arguably, not too desirable. (We’re all for a plastic-free lifestyle, but aren’t quite sure we’re ready to go shower-free juuust yet.)
-by Savannah Christiansen
The Eco-Reps are closing out the year in celebration of sustainability! We had a successful clothing swap at Earthfest on April 11th on the Academic Quad and many students walked away with new styles in hand. Why have a clothing swap anyway? Manufacturing new textiles can put a pretty heavy burden on the planet in terms of the amount of resources needed for manufacturing the fabric, putting it together and then shipping them to retail locations. Clothing swaps are an easy way for people to share existing clothing without using up any new resources!
We spoke with potential future students at Jumbo days on April 17th, 18th and 25th about the Eco-Rep program and the Office of Sustainability and encouraged students to keep their college move-in green with tips such as bringing reusable mugs to campus, using power strips and many more that you can check out here.
On Sunday, April 28th the Reps enjoyed an end of the year celebration with sushi and bouncy castles on Fletcher Field. Wren Hall also got to participate in the festivities for winning Recyclemania. We hope all of our residents are ready to look out for us next year with more composting, in-dorm campaigns, eco events and more. See you then Tufts!
The environment can be defined in many ways but my favorite is: where we eat, live, and play. I think it makes a lot of sense because the environment is not some abstract concept but our very surroundings, where we live, eat, study, and go to class. Our environment is Tufts! And it is undeniable that we love to keep our campus pretty. So it makes me wonder where the resources come from to keep our environment in tip top shape, the people who work here, and where our waste goes? What does it take to keep our environment clean?
Tufts does a great job of working to make Tufts a sustainable living space. However there are many improvements we can make as a community to ensure the impact we make is equitable and fair. In my Environmental Justice and World Literature class, we spoke about the many privileges we have of living in such a healthy environment and the disproportionate cost that can have on communities around us. We took a survey to see if we know for example, where our trash goes, where the salt we use to melt ice is stored, when the workers who help with upkeep of our environment come to work and where they live.
These are important questions to ask to understand how we affect our communities that surround Tufts and better understand the impacts we have. For starters, the salt is stored in Chelsea, and our waste is incinerated in Saurgus. These are communities that have been historically disproportionately affected by industries and have lower economic mobility. It is easy to think about the invisible processes that create the space we live in when we don’t always have to deal with them. Our trash and snow don’t just disappear off campus. I am sure we can all remember the incredible workers who came to shovel snow off our roads to help make it safer for us to get to class at 3 AM in the morning, working in the biting cold.
This coming week, on Monday the 28th, the students in the Environmental Justice and World Literature class are holding an event to increase awareness of these issues of how our living practices at Tufts affect our surrounding communities. Hopefully, once we start thinking about the effects we have on other communities, we can start thinking about how to decrease these impacts. Knowledge is empowering and I hope that it will empower us to make the changes we should to promote sustainability at home and our surrounding communities!
-by Aparna Dasaraju
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