KENYON
GETS
ENVIRONMENTAL
Past Projects
Current Projects
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Divestment Campaign- Last spring, ECO launched a Divestment Campaign urging the Kenyon Board of Trustees to divest from fossil fuels.This is a nation-wide campaign that ECO strongly supports. Many alumni and students signed petitions in favor of divestment and the co-coordinators of the divestment campaign presented their argument for divestment at the Board of Trustees meeting in April. The Board of Trustees were not willing to change our investment plan at this point in time. The Divestment Campaign is currently on hold, but will likely restart next year. This campaign attracted many students who hadn't been involved in ECO previously as well as a large number of alumni who were very much in favor of divesting from fossil fuel stocks and reinvesting in renewable energy.
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Cup Campaign- We have been working this year and last year on our cup campaign. This has been mostly behind the scenes dealing with administration and brainstorming how to make the system efficient. One of the major issues with the former mug system was that students would steal them. This same issue exists with the plastic cups now. We want to make a more efficient pickup system that is actually a student paid job. ECO is also encouraging students to use travel mugs rather than the paper cups in Peirce. ECO has designed and ordered travel mugs and they are arriving late April. Many students have ordered mugs and these proceeds are going to the Wiggin St. Recycling Program.
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Wiggin St. Recycling program- We volunteer at wiggin st. elementary during lunch time and help the students with the recycling program. They need to sort the recyclable goods from the trash goods. The older students know how to do this by now, but the younger ones need help or else everything is put into the trash.
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Hoop house- The Hoop House was started by Tim Jurney 15' through the Sustainability Grant. ECO if currently working on constructing the hoop house so we can begin to grow vegetables this coming summer!
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No waste november- This past November, ECO launched its first No Waste November. The focus was on paper waste. We had an art installation by Regan Fink '14 in Peirce that was made from hundreds of used Peirce paper cups. Additionally, we set up a bin in the library in which we placed all the wasted printer paper every night of the week. We were trying to encourage students to be more mindful about their paper usage, and more specifically to print double-sided and cancel documents when the printers are broken.
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Week of Sustainability- ECO is in charge of Week of Sustainability which is a week dedicated to raising awareness about environmental issues, celebrating nature, and learning about sustainability here at Kenyon. The Week of Sustainability occurs around Earth Day and the Earth Day Fest every year, and works with many different student organizations on campus to provide a variety of events.
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Free Store- Free Store was created by Jenny Bock '13 and has been a very successful program. The free store is a recycling and exchange program where students can either donate or take (for free) used clothing. We have free store about 4 times a year, and it is very popular among the student body.
Brett Miller (millerba@kenyon.edu)
Sonia Prabhu (prabhus@kenyon.edu)
ECO
ECO (Environmental Campus Organization) is a student run club focused on environmental issues on campus, locally, and globally. Our purpose is to transform Kenyon into a more sustainable school while also raising campus awareness about environmental issues. We connect students, faculty, alumni, and the community through this common goal.