Francis Leong | A Greener Penn, One Dorm at a Time

Penn Sustainability Review | Little Bin That Could

By Francis Leong 04/05/16 11:13pm

How many recycling bins do you see in Penn dorm rooms? Chances are, not many. Whether this is due to the fact that they take considerable effort to acquire, or whether it is because students do not know that such options exist for them, does not matter. Starting with our freshmen who move into college dorms every September, we can improve this.

Since nearly all freshmen live on campus and most new students are quick to adapt to university norms, they exist as a great opportunity for the university to promote recycling. If my hallmates and I were given recycling bins during our freshman year, we would have had a much easier time making sure our bottles and cans did not end up in the trash. However, this is not the case.

Many first-year students find it difficult or nearly impossible — after considering how many other things they have on their plates during their first semesters — to find a simple bright blue bin. There really should not be any excuses for this. Penn should provide each student with a recycling bin, free of charge and already in their dorms when they move in.

According to Penn’s Climate Action Plan 2.0, recycling constitutes one of the most important parts to improving the University’s ecological performance. Although Penn recycles nearly 26 percent of its waste, we can do even better. Any amount of recyclable waste that gets thrown out is too much.

We have come a long way since the Climate Action Plan’s induction, and our recycling statistics continue to improve each year, yet we cannot overlook simple ideas such as free recycling bins for incoming freshmen. Numbers, we can agree, should not serve as the only evaluation for whether our university has done a good job working towards sustainability. I hold Penn to a higher standard. Environmentally conscious individuals, such as a growing portion of our incoming freshman classes, should be able to intuitively recognize that Penn embodies the true concept of a green campus. When we move in, we should be able to immediately see and feel the sustainability-oriented culture that we have been working so hard to foster.

Needless to say, we have gone down the right path so far, and I commend Penn for its efforts. We must not ignore the other aspects of our Climate Action Plan, which have specifically aimed to nurture the campus culture I advocate for. For one, the University has increased funding for environmental courses; Penn now offers over 170 courses focused on or related to sustainability. It is important to remember that first and foremost we are an institution that aims to improve the world through intellectual scholarship.

In its push to drastically reduce emissions, the University currently purchases more wind-powered electricity than any other institution of higher learning and actively refurbishes its facilities to be more efficient. Furthermore, the University has offered over 1 million dollars in funding to the greater Penn community for the facilitation of sustainable ideas, all critically important initiatives.

This still does not allow us to act complacently. No current sustainability efforts today are ever good enough. In envisioning a greener future, we must always be striving to do more for our planet.

Recycling does a world of good in terms of reducing our carbon footprint, conserving natural resources and saving landfill space. When Penn can do so much more with such a low-cost initiative, we do not need to reinvent the wheel when looking for more ways to improve our environmental performance. “It’s the little things that count,” the adage goes, and in this case, those little things happen to be bright blue bins.

FRANCIS LEONG is a College sophomore, from Westfield, N.J.

PENN SUSTAINABILITY REVIEW is the first and only sustainability-focused publication at the University of Pennsylvania, and its column usually appears every other Wednesday. 

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