Minnesota Schools Cutting Carbon

Students in Professor David Syring’s class recently spent a semester researching waste/recycling operations at UMD, along with campus behaviors and attitudes about waste management.

Originally the students thought their research would lead them to conclusions about how administrative and structural changes were needed at UMD. However, they quickly realized that UMD has provided a sustainable waste management framework to its campus community. The larger issue is that the campus community needs to take responsibility for their own actions:

Conclusion: “We must, as a whole community and as individuals, remember that reducing is the most important, reusing is the next best option, and recycling (which is still a form of waste) is a last resort. By shifting individual paradigms, we will eventually transform the larger paradigm of living disposable lifestyles to a more sustainable, while still highly enjoyable, style of living.”

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Learn more about what the group found by visiting their website at: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/raich021/anthropologyseniorseminar09/

View the hiply-styled documentary at: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/raich021/anthropologyseniorseminar09/documentary/

UMD’s first trash audit: http://media.www.umdstatesman.com/media/storage/paper1351/news/2009/05/0...