Get aware! A little bit about one of the authors' motivations for the blog.

Apparently, vampire loads (i.e. appliances that are plugged in but not in use) cost Americans upwards of 3 billion dollars a year, according to the New York Times.  To think, by unplugging things when we aren't using them, we could make our bailout a little less painful.. But instead, we're content to allow billions of our dollars and our resources pour into powering things that aren't in use.  It's sort of like pouring money down a toilet.  Isn't anyone willing to save a buck here or there nowadays? I guess not.  

I shouldn't be one to proselytize, because I've done the same thing. In fact, I ride the elevator to the second floor to make people at the lower levels angry (I probably shouldn't say that).  But I think that the first step in changing a behavior is recognizing that you want a change.  You know, they tell alcoholics and druggies on the intervention shows that they have to "want" to change before they can start any new behaviors.  So I'll tell you why I want to change and how I'm going to go about doing that. 

Last semester, on a cold Friday morning, I saw a friend throw out an entire bowl of cereal.  

I'll pause here for dramatic effect.

Ok, I suppose for some of you, that wouldn't be earth shattering.  But for me, on that fateful Friday morning, it was.  

I began to think about the costs and effects of that wasted bowl of cereal.  

First, the cereal could have gone to someone who was a little hungrier.  Maybe it was the cereal before the serving that just ran out, or maybe it was that last serving.  Either way, the cereal did not sustain any hunger pangs, starving babies, or poor children in Ethiopia or Bangladesh or Burkina Faso.

Second, I had to think about where that cereal was going.  It joined the general garbage heap, which meant that it probably got put into a dumpster once the trash can was full, loaded onto a garbage truck, transported to some exotic location like Salina, New York, and dumped into a landfill to give off methane like the rest of the matter rotting there.

Third, I thought about the resources that went into making that kind of cereal.  Perhaps vast fields of corn or soy were harvested and then processed for it, which meant that the fields used for it depleted the nutrients in the soil, the pesticides caused bad agricultural runoff, and the local ecosystem was irrevocably damaged.  

Fourth, (I was starting to get really angry here), that wasted bowl of cereal might have meant that others wasted entire bowls of cereal too.  And other foods as well.   So therefore, the school was buying too much cereal and food for people that weren't going to eat it. Which meant that the school was spending too much money on it, which meant that they needed money for it, which meant that money from our meal plans and tuitions was going towards it, which meant that I had to pay more to go to school because of the indirect effects of my friend wasting a bowl of cereal.  

As one person could guess, by this point, I was fuming.  

Unfortunately, I couldn't just yell at my friend for wasting a bowl of cereal.  I'm not her mother, so who am I to scold?

I decided the only thing that could have prevented the situation from occurring altogether would have been a). Eating the bowl of cereal or b). Composting the uneaten cereal.  

Because she decided not to eat the cereal, I decided I had to do something.

So I emailed the chancellor.  

Of course, it was a long shot, because she probably gets upwards of 3,000 emails a day, most from star-struck fans and stalkers.  But I did. And I told her that I was angry that I didn't see a compost bin, and I drew up a 500+ word semi-lecture on why we should have compost bins in and around the dining halls on campus.  

To my surprise, she replied back, and told me that some of Syracuse's faculty is already working on composting initiatives (I was stunned that there were other brilliant greenies out there like me) and that she thought I had great ideas.  Perhaps I should talk to them, too!

So she forwarded the email to a terrific guy named Steve Lloyd (head of the sustainability committee here on our lovely campus), and he and a few other people gave me the lowdown on the compost scene.  

Here's what I learned:

They're trying, but they need to get insurance documents from some guy at Toad Hollow who's licensed to compost post-consumer waste.  Apparently he's a little slow, or tired, or won the lottery and stopped working, and hasn't given us the documents we need, so progress on that is at a bit of a stand-still.

However, SIFE, or Students In Free Enterprise (based in the Whitman School of Management), is working on  an exciting and not-smelly project to bring an anaerobic digester (think: super fancy-composter) here to our light green campus.  

So what Elysa and myself (Marissa) are trying to do is to get word out about our fancy composter (and other composting initiatives) that will be able to power millions of homes and starving people worldwide.

Ok, so maybe it won't go THAT far, but it could help power the Sheraton and/or other neighboring businesses.  

Basically, we're just trying to build awareness to help people understand the impacts of their choices here on our campus.  I'm going to strive to keep you educated and aware of what Syracuse is doing to be "green," and how you can help.  And we hope that you'll be open to new ideas, as we're open to your opinions and suggestions.

And maybe you'll eat that bowl of cereal. 

Until next time,

Marissa