Eco-Reps Strive for Sustainability
If you have been to a UVM dormitory you have probably heard of the Eco-Reps, but what are they? The university defines an Eco-Rep as “student employees who help their peers make more sustainable choices while on campus and build an environmental justice ethic that lasts a lifetime.”
I had the pleasure of speaking with Ryan Chai, an Eco-Rep for UVM. Chaia’s main job is to collect compost around the Redstone dorms and ensure that students recycle correctly. Most of the Eco-Reps are avid cyclists, so they get to and from the dorm rooms via bicycle. Chaia believes that the compost goes to the Davis center and then ends up at Green Mountain Compost, but he didn’t want to be quoted since it wasn’t his specific duty.
Chaia has had many good memories of being an Eco-rep, but perhaps his most memorable was the clothing swap done at the end of the year. “We got clothes around that people weren't using. We allowed them to donate them and we just had a little swap where people could come up and pick whatever they wanted,” said Chaia.
Chaia would like to see the food waste in the dining halls change. “After the hours of 6 pm, most of the glass plates change into ‘compostable’ and the food compost bin gets removed, so all of the food gets thrown away,” said Chaia. As someone who ate in the dining halls last year, I can attest to that because it was sickening to see how much food got wasted in just one day. The university needs to address the food waste crisis in dining halls across campus.
Eco-Reps also do some activities to encourage sustainable transportation among students. One event they do on campus every year is a bike students can ride to make a smoothie. It’s an educational event to get students to learn about bicycles and how they can be a great form of transportation in the city of Burlington. Perhaps the best part is that you can make a smoothie by pedaling a stationary bike. Chaia also mentioned that they hand out flyers to promote bike use. “We handed out pamphlets for how people can get bikes on campus, how they can rent them, purchase them, fix them, and how to keep them safe.”
The Eco-Rep program is quite broad and expands across many sustainable topics. Chaia encourages incoming first-years to apply to become an EcoRrep because it’s a position that holds meaning. He also said, “At the end of the day you feel like you made a difference, like I can help the university become more sustainable.”
Chaia felt that the Eco-Rep program is poorly marketed and he wished that more people knew about the program and what it stood for. He is passionate about sustainability and is doing his best to educate students and staff about the Eco-rep program, but he believes it needs more positive attention. The Rubenstein school has a good relationship with Eco-Reps and most of their students know of the program, but Chaia feels like the other schools within UVM don’t know about Eco-Reps.
Overall, the Eco-rep program at UVM is successful and many positive events happen every year. However, there could be better marketing when it comes to the program, and communication across the different schools could help promote a better understanding of what Eco-reps do.
