Pitt’s Green Team encourages student sustainability

Pitt has sprouted a new green initiative this semester, although its growth has slowed since… Pitt has sprouted a new green initiative this semester, although its growth has slowed since move-in.Pitt organized the Green Team, this fall, led by Residence Life, the Office of First Year Experience, Housing and Dining Services and Student Affairs. The pilot program is meant to make students more environmentally conscious and more aware of sustainability efforts on campus.

Resident Director Amy Reed has played a big role in getting the program running this semester with fellow Resident Directors Matt Landy and Xavier Blackwell, as well as Pat Heffley, the recycling coordinator of Housing and Dining Services, and Mary Utter, coordinator of First Year Experience. The 100-member Green Team is composed of this year’s incoming freshmen.

Reed said she established the program to give “first-year students an opportunity to have an immediate leadership position on campus” while being environmentally friendly.

So far, the team hosted their only event during freshman move-in at the end of August, where they recycled cardboard moving boxes and handed out recycling flyers. While the group led one large campaign at the beginning of the year, it’s in the middle of a break until it thinks of a new project.

Incoming freshmen were emailed over the summer to ask if they would like to participate, Pitt Green Team member Kristen Rupnik said.

Rupnik said she thinks it is important to stay environmentally conscious, but “I try not to be obsessive about it.”

Reed said the 105 freshmen involved in the group, who were the first ones to respond to the email, moved in one day early in August and attended a mandatory two-hour training session during which they met their fellow Green Team members and learned more about the group.

Each student was assigned a four-hour shift during the first day of freshman move-in where they either volunteered to give out informational flyers containing recycling facts or volunteered at cardboard-recycling stations. The stations were located at Forbes, Lothrop and Sutherland Halls and on the Litchfield Towers patio.

Students who chose to recycle received $5 coupons for The Pitt Shop or 10 percent off purchases at Maggie & Stella’s Cards & Gifts.

Reed said the coupons were “our way of giving back to people for recycling.”

But students said the event was not very successful.

Rupnik, who volunteered at Lothrop’s cardboard recycling station, said they “had a lot of coupons left” at the end of the day and said that Green Team volunteers “basically just sat there.”

Freshman Brian Nelson agreed with Rupnik’s assessment. Nelson said that people were walking around with “mostly just flyers” and he, like many other students, had not recycled any cardboard and did not know anyone who had.

Other students were assigned to hand out recycling information sheets, which were not printed on 100 percent recyclable paper, Reed said. She assumed that the paper would be recycled, but was surprised that it couldn’t be recycled afterward.

But Rupnik said the event “was a really good idea. We kind of want to try to do more on stuff on campus.”

The team had its first meeting since move-in day on Sept. 11, with the goal of continuing to generate awareness on campus about how to be more environmentally friendly. Reed said the students involved “were still very excited.”

Reed said that for future plans, she would like to include the Student Government Board.

Reed plans on giving the same opportunity of joining the team to the freshman class of 2016.

“It went above and beyond my expectations,” Reed said.