Time for MT, Greeks to step up recycling on campus

I love nature. I want to keep as much of it around as I can.

Over the years, I’ve found myself actively participating in two campus organizations focused on the environment – Students for Environmental Action and Alpha Gamma Rho.

The major goal of SEA is to encourage people to think about how they affect the environment. We do this by sponsoring events like last Friday’s Sustainable Campus Convention and this spring’s Earth Week celebration.

AGR is a social-professional fraternity based in agriculture. Yes, we’re the farm boys and no, we don’t all own cowboy hats. Actually, our majors span from concrete industry management to environmental engineering, which is mine.

We have alumni who own farms, work in farm bureaus and run agriculture supply stores. Not all of us till around in dirt all day, but we try not to forget our connection to the Earth and our environment.

Thursday, we’re hosting an event to raise money for our philanthropy, Chasing Victory. The basic gist is members of sororities will race tractors around the MTSU Livestock Center.

I love my fraternity and the Greek community, but I’m still surprised when events are organized that seem to disregard the environment.

What would the tractor race be like if instead of tractors, the sororities raced bikes? It’d probably not be as entertaining but definitely more environmentally conscious.

Then we hold events like homecoming, where it is tradition to build floats for the parade. This involves paper-ball and chicken wire decorations that will never be recycled. Add to this our tailgating events minus recycling, and we have to ask, what is this world coming to?

We need to start focusing on conservation. Rather than using thousands upon thousands of scrunched-up pieces of tissue paper, we could try to use recycled materials. We could ban “pomping” (tissue paper float construction) and try a green homecoming.

On a less idealistic note, the support for more recycling on campus is growing and hopefully, one day, this program will expand to Greek Row.

Homecoming events, like floats and fight song, result in many long hours over a number of weeks. The result: numerous energy drinks, soda cans and mason jars will be thrown directly into a dumpster.

Go straight to the landfill. Do not recycle; do not collect 50 cents a pound.

William Harper is a junior environmental engineering major.

Comments

5 comments

will

Sun Oct 25 2009 16:18

Hey,
Thanks for all of the comments.
Let's develop a rhythm. The last thing we need to do is quit communicating.

Hey "true"

Mon Oct 12 2009 11:33

If this kid is going to accomplish his goal - he needs to learn that discussing it with the RELEVANT parties is the first step... If he wants to "progress conversation" he needs to start one with his fraternity. Airing his grievances to the whole campus isn't very loyal in my book. In fact - it doesn't demonstrate cooperation or brotherhood at all. HIS story is the reason people don't want to be Greek - because he is showing the world that he can't work well with his own brothers - which is the basis of fraternity membership. Try reading what I've written... Nothing in my post stated that Greeks don't care...

MT Student

Sat Oct 10 2009 23:32

Are all AGR's afraid that the world will end because the largest university in Tenessee uses a pallet of tissue paper to cover it's floats once a year? You guys might need to conisder the broader picture. Did you recycle the entirety of the cups, bottles, and other containers strewn about after the AGR toga party last night, or simply toss them in the dumpsters on Greek Row?

True MT Greek Alumni

Thu Oct 8 2009 18:50

MT Greek Alumni:

You are the very reason that people across campus and the world think Greeks don't care. I am ashamed at your comment. Being an MT Greek Alumni myself, I applaud this young man for the step he has taken to try to secure policies that will progress conservation.
Greeks at MTSU need to stop trying to fit the sterotype and start standing for what their founders envisioned back in the late 1800s and early 1900s. I know that the founders of my fraternity have rolled over in their grave at some of what my MTSU chapter has done.

MT Greek Alumni

Thu Oct 8 2009 14:23

Sounds like it's time for you to man up and approach your own brothers about this - instead of airing your grievances to the entire campus... AGR is trying to do something positive either way - so stop moaning and nitpicking the petty details. To me - you don't sound like a member who supports his organization... If I were a brother there I probably wouldn't listen to you either. You should quit.

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