The Plastic Bag Pollution Solution

Over the last 10 years, we have produced more plastic than we have during the past century. Not to mention, more than 50% of the plastic that we produce gets used once and then thrown away. In fact, enough plastic is thrown away each year to circle the Earth four times!

One of the least useful plastic products produced is, not surprisingly, the plastic bag. The average plastic bag has an average use time of only about 12 minutes before it is disposed of to remain in landfills, oceans and other places for thousands of years! Annually, approximately 500 billion plastic bags are used worldwide. Not to mention, their production consumes copious amounts of fossil fuels which are non-renewable resources.

On the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute campus, we are no stranger to the plastic bag epidemic. At all retail locations on campus, plastic bags are offered to carry food and material items purchased. Recently, RPI Dining Services has begun handing out reusable tote bags to students signed up for a meal plan. These reusable, recyclable tote bags are made out of coated water-resistant polypropylene. They can be used to carry groceries, meals-to-go and even books and merchandise purchased at the campus store.

Here at RPI, we are taking the necessary steps in order to reduce the amount of plastic waste currently residing in landfills. Not to mention, providing students with free reusable tote bags!

Rensselaer Dining Services Brings Students Clean Water

On October 16th at about 6:00 pm, portions of the water system between Congress St. and Frear Park Road in Troy, NY lost pressure due to an emergency shutdown of a water main for maintenance purposes. Unfortunately, when the water mains lose pressure it increases the chance of untreated water or potentially harmful microbes entering the system. In light of this, Troy issued a voluntary boil water advisory for a few days until routine sampling of the water was completed to ensure safety.

This emergency situation has greatly impacted the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute campus. Students have been advised not to drink water from the sink in their residence halls or from any of the sinks or water fountains on campus. Due to the lack of available, safe drinking water on campus, Rensselaer Dining Services has partnered with Pepsi to bring free bottled water to campus residents. Students can get up to three bottles of water each day by showing their student ID at the Pepsi truck parked behind the Commons Dining Hall. Moreover, clean drinking water is available inside each of the dining halls, as well as juice and cans of soda. The Rensselaer Dining Services staff has been extremely accommodating to students during this tough time.

In light of all the mayhem occurring over the past two days, we must remember that 783 million people in the world today live without access to clean drinking water. This number equates to 1 in 9 people worldwide. While this may be a slight inconvenience for the students of RPI and the citizens of Troy, NY, we should remain very grateful that we have the luxury of access to clean and safe drinking water on a daily basis

Reusable Mugs: an investment in the future

On average, Americans throw away 25 billion styrofoam coffee cups every year. Considering styrofoam cannot be completely recycled, most of it disposed of today will still be found in landfills 500 years from now! Don't jump to any conclusions though, paper cups aren't much better. According to Starbucks Global Social Impact Report, close to 4 million to-go cups end up in landfills annually. Why not recycle or compost them? Unfortunately, most paper cups, like Starbucks, are lined with plastic making them unable to be recycled or composted.

Rensselaer Dining Services has taken matters into their own hands by gifting a reusable mug to all students that sign up for a dining plan. These reusable mugs are made of BPA-free recyclable plastic and are manufactured in the USA. Not to mention, they are also microwave and dishwasher safe. To incentivize student use, Rensselaer Dining Services has offered $1.25 coffee refills when using the mug-- even cheaper than a small cup of coffee. Though there are no formal statistics reporting how many students actually use these mugs, as a member of the RPI community I see many students each day carrying their mug to the retail cafes on campus to fill-up on coffee before class. 

Diminishing styrofoam and paper waste is a colossal challenge that demands the attention of people all over the world. However, the efforts taken by small communities is the first step to conquering this problem. Here at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, we are taking the steps towards becoming the change the world needs and in doing so we hope to inspire other campuses around the country to do the same.

Campus Composting is in Style

Here at Rensselaer, we are no stranger to food waste. On a campus comprised of over 5,000 students and 14 different dining locations, there is always going to be an unfortunate amount of food waste produced. Our latest efforts to mitigate the damage caused by food waste involves repurposing it a.k.a composting! Students dining in our largest retail location, the Rensselaer Union have the opportunity to compost their leftover food instead of ditching it in the garbage can. Students can find clearly labeled compost bins in the McNeil Room of the Rensselaer Union as well as posters detailing what can and can't be composted.

For those of you unfamiliar with this term, composting is the act of repurposing food by means of decomposition into soil (called compost). The idea behind this is that organic matter, basically, anything that was once living, will eventually decompose. Hence, you can compost anything that was once living or that was derived from living things, such as fruits, vegetables, grains, dairy, meat, poultry, and fish. You can even compost coffee ground, tea bags, and napkins! Each day the contents of the compost bin are collected and set to decompose at a separate location in Troy for a period of time. The soil (compost) that is produced by the decomposed food is then used in a local Troy garden to grow delicious, fresh fruits and vegetables.

Besides all the food waste that is being diminished at Rensselaer, we also focus largely on recycling. Right next to our compost bins in the McNeil of the Rensselaer Union are recycling bins with posters detailing what can and can't be recycled. All of our plastic to-go containers can be placed in the recycling bins and well as all of the plastic and glass beverage bottles. Student's can also dispose of their used paper, magazines, and newspapers in the recycling bins. 

Theoretically, between composting and recycling, very few things should end up in the garbage cans at the end of the day. However, it is in your hands to make sure you are disposing of your waste properly! It is never too late to take a step towards becoming a more sustainable campus community.

Sustainable Seafood: Freshness minus the Foolishness

Retrieved from redsbest.com

Sustainable seafood is defined as seafood that is either caught or farmed in ways that consider the long-term vitality of harvested species and the well-being of the oceans, as well as the livelihoods of fisheries-dependent communities. Red's Best, a Boston-based distributor of fresh seafood has partnered with Rensselaer dining services to bring students just this. The company's mission is to provide freshly caught seafood from American waters while supporting the livelihood of small-time American fishermen. This partnership comes as part of Sodexo North America's 2015 initiative to serve 100% certified sustainable seafood in line with their Better Tomorrow Plan. 

Specifically, Sodexo of North America outlines 5 key pillars to their sustainable seafood plan:

1. Maintain a wide variety of species in Sodexo's catalogues and menus
2. Ban species at risk and implement control measures for others
3. Increase use of Eco-standards or labels
4. Set up supply for sustainable aquaculture
5. Develop sourcing according to an established technical agreement between Sodexo and WWF

Retrieved from nytimes.com

Unlike other wholesale retailers who's fish rarely was caught in U.S. water, Red's Best upholds these pillars by sourcing their seafood from fishermen located across different areas of Massachusetts and Alaska. These fishermen also focus on in-season fish and small vessel fishing ensuring that over-fishing doesn't occur and species are in their peak season when being harvested-- two main criteria of sustainable fishing.  This affords the opportunity to distribute a plethora of in-season species of freshly caught fish available in Russell Sage Dining Hall and Commons Dining Hall on the Rensselaer campus every Friday. Not to mention, you can actually scan an RSS code on your smartphone to see where the fish you are eating was caught and what species of fish the fillet is. 

The Zero Waste Initiative: saving the world one less landfill at a time

Currently, the average American throws away about 4.5 pounds of trash each day. To put this in perspective, as a country, we could fill 63,000 garbage trucks with trash produced in one day. This sets us in the position of one of the top waste producers in the entire world! Not exactly something to brag about.

Retrieved from Ecocycle.com

You may ask, what's the big deal with trash? Well, the problem boils down to one simple fact: we do not have enough non-renewable resources to continually supply the energy and materials needed to completely reproduce the products thrown away. In fact, if every country consumed resources at the same rate as us, we would need 5 planets just to keep up.

This is why it is imperative that society makes a switch to zero waste. Here at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, we have already taken measures to follow the "Zero Waste Initiative" by recycling, composting, and simply reducing the amount of waste we produce. The "Zero Waste Initiative" is a philosophy that encourages the re-use of products in order to reduce the amount of trash sent to landfills and ultimately conserve resources.

This past weekend at Rensselaer's 2017 Commencement, NO trash was disposed of to be sent to landfills. Instead, recycling and compost cans were scattered around the event to collect any disposable items. Sodexo has also ensured that recycling bins can be found in all dining halls around campus and retail cafés on campus even recycle coffee grounds!

While all this is really awesome, especially on a college campus, we can't do it without you. All it takes is a group of empowered students to really make a change on campus. So next time you see a compost bin or recycling bin, make you sure you take advantage of it and help dimish the amount of trash we throw away here at Rensselaer.