In May of 2017, Keene State College was recognized as one of nine schools to receive the Green Ribbon towards sustainability. The campus organization called Recycling On Campus at KSC (R.O.C.K.S.) works to recycle various types of waste on campus and create a more eco-friendly atmosphere. Recently, they have turned to composting in the Zorn Dining Commons , switched from using regular heating oil to vegetable oil and tried to implement more sustainability in the classrooms by creating a sustainability minor. While it is great that we are taking steps towards becoming more eco-friendly, it is important to stick with these ideas and be aware of how we are impacting our environment.
Alexandria Saurman/ Managing Executive Editor
Being sustainable is extremely important. We want to see this last a while. We want to see more recycling and see each product go into the right bin. We want to see more recycling off campus as well. On campus, R.O.C.K.S. works to clean up waste and help the students if they need to dispose of certain things, like ink cartridges for example. According to R.O.C.K.S.’s website, the organization recycled 446,000 pounds, of materials including 149,320 pounds of cardboard, 105,000 pounds of mixed paper and 115,220 pounds of glass, plastic and aluminum during the 2008 academic school year.
However, we’ve noticed that many off-campus housing facilities do not offer places for recycling. We’ve also noticed the houses in Keene do not get recycling bins from the town. It would be helpful to carry the sustainability efforts from campus into the community. We feel that recycling and doing our part is something so small but can give you gratitude. We feel that doing things like scraping your plates and recycling paper is an easy change. We’d like to see more of these simple changes.
We acknowledge that not only has R.O.C.K.S. attempted to be more sustainable, the college itself has too by building eco-friendly buildings like the Living Learning Commons (LLC) and the Technology Design and Safety (TDS) center.
The LLC uses geothermal energy to heat the common areas of the building including the lobby and the classrooms and heat pumps are used in resident’s rooms so they can control the temperature. This is effective because it is possible to turn off heat in the rooms that aren’t being used which will ultimately save money and energy. According to KSC’s website, the TDS has windows with sensors to help with heating and cooling off the building as well as a solar panel which provides almost half of the energy to the building. It also aims to reduce water consumption along.
We are happy that the college is willing to make changes to help the environment and make campus a better place. While we appreciate the steps taken by the college to be eco-friendly, we feel that there are more cost-effective ways out there. By taking small and simple steps daily, we will be able to work towards creating a better campus.
