Grab & Go Green: Sustainable Habit Fest

By Kristie Murru

Grab & Go Green was an on campus event that my Senior capstone group hosted on Thursday March 29 at the Ramapo College Student Center. This event was designed to provide students an incentive to practice sustainable habits by rewarding individuals that had reusable mugs or bottles. With the assistance of the on-campus organization 1-STEP, we were able to ask the school for money to fund this event. The coffee and iced tea were catered by the food company Sodexo.

In addition to the on campus provider, we partnered with the Ramapo College Bookstore. The director of the store provided a 25 percent discount on all reusable items and mugs that students purchased that day. The idea then became that if you want to participate in a campus event like this one, you should either bring your reusable mug if you already have one or make the investment at a cheaper cost by purchasing one.

Using person-to-person face time, we were able to engage roughly 70 Ramapo students and staff. At the table members of my group handed out stickers with the Ramapo Green logo and displayed a compost container that participating dorms present to students that live there. One of our members answered any questions that students had regarding what to do or what not to do with the bins.

In addition, there was a Single Stream recycling sign on display that students and faculty can expect to see over campus-wide recycling bins. The sign details what can be placed into a recycling bin on campus and what can’t. Both paper and plastic bottles can be recycled, but what a lot of people don’t know is that if any sort of liquid or food is put into the recycling bins, the whole thing becomes contaminated. The entire bin load can no longer be recycled. With a wider range of knowledge on this occurrence, I believe that it can definitely prompt people to become more conscious of their actions.

This tabling event was a great way to explain these things to people face to face. A lot of educational outreach struggles to gain footing because a lot of the information is too much to process. Speaking directly to people and gauging their knowledge is very beneficial research.

Through survey research at the event, we asked questions to determine the scope of students' knowledge regarding how much plastic is thrown away. For the most part, students seemed to have an overall understanding of how much plastic is used only once and thrown away. The interest in having events like Grab & Go Green was confirmed by 42 percent of participants. This information is great to know going forward so that more people can become engaged in sustainability related events on campus that will continue to be put in place by 1-STEP, The Garden Club and Ramapo Green.