For many students at the University of Maryland, this semester has already been picking up at a rapid pace. Though we have only been in school for a few weeks, there seems to be that never-ending game of "catch up" with all of the midterms, projects, and plethora of other assignments that we are getting. This not only means cups and cups of your strongest teas and coffees, but also an increased use in paper, whether you're printing out assignments, reviews, or anything of the like. Many professors are thankfully transitioning to electronic submissions through ELMS to reduce paper usage, but with roughly 30,000 students on our campus, one can only imagine how much paper is still used. Globally, approximately four billion trees are harvested for paper worldwide every year [1]. This need for paper has only been increasing with the growing population over the years, and with other environmental issues that are going on, our trees are in trouble. Certain initiatives, such as recycling paper, are laudable changes that have mitigated the strain on trees caused by the pressing demand for paper. In fact, throughout the US in 2009, recycling efforts saved 60% of all paper from going into a landfill [1].
With the University of Maryland's strong commitment to sustainability, our school has also implemented certain practices that have decreased the amount of waste we produce. Upon further research, the SGA's Student Sustainability Committee dug up the Environmentally Preferable Procurement (EPP) Policy [2] that was tucked away in a corner. The EPP Policy was created in 2009 to ensure that the products and services the University of Maryland obtains are environmentally sound and work toward reducing the university's carbon emissions. The purpose of this policy is to promote and improve campus sustainability, which can range from using renewable energy supplies to biodegradable products to environmentally sensitive building construction services. This purpose is to be considered in every procurement decision made.
As stated in the procedures, this meant that only 100% post-consumer recycled paper was supposed to be procured for general office paper use by July 1, 2012. Additionally, the policy outlined other means of reducing paper use, such as decreasing margins to 1/2 in. to increase paper content and setting all printers to be double-sided by default. It has already been over two years since this policy was supposed to be implemented, yet most departments and offices on campus are still not compliant. Those are two years lost in which we could have saved even more trees and further reduced our campus' waste! These changes are rather small and simple, yet they could make a huge impact if this policy is enforced across campus.
To ensure this policy is to be complied with across the campus, the Student Sustainability Committee plans to refocus strong consideration on this matter by educating pertinent campus departments and bringing attention to their lack of compliance. We have developed a letter and a survey [3] asking departments if they are aware of the policy, and whether or not they currently use 100% recycled paper. So far we’ve sent it out to all academic departments and are currently collecting responses. Once we have a satisfactory amount of responses we will decide how to proceed. You can read our letter HERE.
I'm proud to be a part of a campus that cares deeply about the environment, but we could always do more. Recycled or non-recycled, paper is still going to be paper, so why not make the change?
-Yoojin Park, Marketing '16