James Fox, Campus Carrier deputy news editor
Plastic is a seemingly inescapable material in the current day despite its negative impact on the environment. Since the discovery of microplastics, backlash towards plastic use has only become more widespread, even at Berry.
“Our day to day beauty products, shampoo, conditioner, all that,” said Courtney Cooper, professor of environmental science and studies. “Everything we use has plastics in it. We’re in a world of plastics, a time of plastics.”
Many students and staff on campus think that there needs to be change regarding our approach to single-use plastics.
“We have a lot of ways we could be more efficient here,” Cooper said. “Why not try to see where we can make progress without compromising comfort?”
Students have looked at other schools’ progress in phasing out single-use plastics.
“Let’s not go so far that we’re having to live this really inconvenient life,” Cooper said. “Let’s figure out some balance where we just start to cut down on our use. Looking at other institutions as well, there are lots of models out there. I hear about Georgia Tech all the time. Students will ask me why we can’t implement those things here.”
Despite the apparent desire for change among many students, there are also a lot of students that lack awareness of why single-use plastics are an issue in the first place.
The Eco Club has been raising concerns about the difficulty of recycling plastic on campus.
“I think we need to be more cognisantly aware of plastics,” Cooper said. “At the individual level, we’re eating a lot of plastics every day whether we know it or not through our food, processed food, breathing in the air containing plastic bits. We know [plastics] aren’t good for us. It causes cancer and various other negative health outcomes. We’re all being exposed to it.”
Spreading awareness is one of the most important things that can be done to sow the seeds of change in any community. It is one of the main goals of Berry’s Eco Club.
“Eco Club does chalk team where we’ll just chalk some important information,” senior environmental science and studies major Myriam Saldarriaga said. “We try to do a recycling initiative or some kind of microplastics thing every year with CE credits; just some general environmental awareness; just taking a minute to at least think before you buy something, that in itself is a level of awareness.”
Eco Club was also responsible for coordinating a protest against single-use plastics on campus last semester and are now working with Berry administration to enact changes.
Saldarriaga was one of the organizers of the protest and saw how inadequately students were able to recycle plastics on campus.
“We thought we are so reliant, especially at D-Hall [on plastics],” Saldarriaga said. “We have the single-use silverware and a lot of products in The Pod have single-use plastics. We wanted to advocate initially for a full ban. We got a lot of signatures on that but we want to rephrase it to phasing out of single-use plastics.”
The protest allowed Eco Club to express the concerns of many students to Berry and got the administration on board to make some changes.
“We are communicating to see if we can reach an agreement on what to do while still keeping good faith with our partners,” Saldarriaga said. “Admin is on board. They see the student body’s want to start being more eco-friendly, but its really about feasibility. I’m hoping I can kick start this project and then long after I’m gone whoever inherits [Eco Club] next will be able to keep going.”