By Josh Hughes
Fresh off of the success of their Earth Day events, the AS Environmental & Sustainability Programs are still running strong and coordinating new and ongoing projects for the upcoming year.
On April 25 the ESP held an array of Earth Day events, which were extensively covered by this paper. Earth Day is always the biggest event of the year for the group, meaning that planning for the events oftentimes starts in fall quarter.
“Traditionally we’ve picked a theme and built the program around that theme, but we did it in reverse this year where we pulled on the skills we’ve been working on since the start of the year and put it all together,” said Environmental Center Coordinator Hannah Bridgham. “The theme came out of itself— we decided to call it a lens of sustainability through community.”
This theme manifested in a series of talks that approached sustainability throughout various communities, starting with Western’s community and eventually reaching to the global community.
Bridgham also expressed her satisfaction with the events due to the tactile nature of many of the workshops, which included a tree planting and a DIY “Make and Take” table where students made their own toothpaste.
Now that the biggest event of the year is over, the ESP and EC (Environmental Center) are continuing to work on other projects that have also been in the works since the start of the year. Notably, the Sustainability Period Project that got started in February 2018 is still running strong.
“It was supposed to be a brief event, but it snowballed out of my control in the most beautiful way,” said Bridgham. “I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but it was great.”
After writing some sustainable action fund grants, Bridgham and Western Zero Waste Coordinator Gwen Larned planned an educational event to give students free and sustainable period products such as Diva Cups and Lunapads. The event included a series of talks on the importance of reusable menstrual products and various social issues that have arisen out of a lack of access to such products.
“The Diva Cups are $40 a piece, which is way more than a box of tampons would be, but over the course of a year— five years— you will save so much money having a reusable product like this,” said Bridgham. “But if you can’t afford the upfront cost, you can’t get it, so we wanted to give everyone an opportunity to get the product.”
However, what Bridgham and the ESP didn’t plan was the the event going viral. Over 600 students on Facebook ordered products through the Google Form, even though only 125 were covered by the grant. As a response, the office is currently writing more grants to try and get the funds so that everyone can get their products.
“Some of the people who ordered the cups didn’t attend the event unfortunately, so we’re hopefully going to run another workshop,” said Bridgham.
The Environmental Center is also in the process of making Diva Cups and Lunapads available through the Western Bookstore at zero profit margins. This means that students could get them cheaper on campus as opposed to nearly anywhere else.
The Environmental Center is also currently working on getting disposable and organically sourced tampons and pads in all the bathrooms in academic buildings throughout campus.
“There was a really strong movement last year to get that going, but a lot of people graduated, so we’re excited to hopefully launch that next year in October,” said Bridgham.