Editor’s note: This article was initially published in The Daily Gazette, Swarthmore’s online, daily newspaper founded in Fall 1996. As of Fall 2018, the DG has merged with The Phoenix. See the about page to read more about the DG.
For the third annual GREENMarch, Earthlust is collaborating with other environment-focused groups on campus—Environmental Justice, Green Advisors, Mountain Justice, Good Food and Animal Advocates, and the Womyn’s Resource Center—to coordinate a variety of events.
“The goal of GREENmarch is to promote sustainable practices and to spread awareness about how each of us at Swarthmore can make a difference,” said Kat Clark ’12, a member of Earthlust.
Students serving food at Earthlust’s GreenMarch takeover of Sharples. Photo by Jiuxing June Xie.“Each of the student groups involved in GREENmarch has its own unique goal and mission,” Clark added, “but we hope that by collaborating on this month of events we will be able to have a greater impact.”
The Womyn’s Resource Center aims to promote sustainable hygiene practices (Alternative Menstrual Products Workshop, March 15). Earthlust aims to respond to paper waste in McCabe (Print Release Station, March 15-17) and to reach out to the student body via the Sharples Takeover (March 17) and Green Iron Chef competition (March 26), according to Clark.
Earthlust also brought Josh Fox, the director of Gasland, to campus, because of the “regional relevance of his documentary” on hydraulic fracturing ”and his recent Oscar nomination,” explained Clark.
Others groups, such as Environmental Justice (EJ), which is currently on a temporary charter, aim to both establish a greater presence on campus and to work on their individual goals.
“EJ decided to put on the screening of Laid to Waste,” a documentary on the impact of waste treatment plants on their Chester neighborhood, “because it catalyzed the group to get to action and to work in Chester,” said Kathryn Wu ’14, a member of Environmental Justice and Earthlust.
Environmental Justice members are also collaborating with the Green Advisors for the Flower Power Parlor Party (March 25). The two groups aim to make seed-bombs and to then distribute them.
“All the seeds are for native species,” said Wu; “we are trying not to introduce invasive species and destroy the nonexistent ecosystem in Chester.”
A Print Release Station in McCabe was also trialed from March 15th to 17th as a way to reduce the waste of paper that occurs at the library. Now that the trial is over and the data for paper usage has been collected, Earthlust member Camille Robertson ’13 told the Gazette that the station was “generally successful and will be reinstated soon.”
ITS has yet to decide whether a second installation of the station will be permanent or another temporary trial.
According to ITS records, there appeared to be a 20% decrease in the sheets of paper printed during the week of the three-day trial.
70,800 sheets of paper were printed out the last week before spring break (from Saturday to Friday), while 56,500 sheets of paper were printed out last week (Monday to Sunday). The test period lasted from Tuesday to Thursday.