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Recycling Switches to Dual Stream System for Sustainable Improvements

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Florida Tech has switched to a dual stream recycling program in order to curb thousands of dollars in contamination fines from incorrect recycling.

Quinn Duffy, the university sustainability officer, said dual stream process uses multiple bins instead of one bin for all recycled material and can help to make it a simple process for students to use since it eliminates the guessing of what is recyclable. 

According to Duffy, Florida Tech has been working on switching to a better recycling system since they had been fined $18,300 for contamination over the past year.

“As it stands right now, we have switched to a dual stream system which is actually a form of simplification to avoid contamination fines from waste management,” Duffy said.

 A new dual stream system was implemented in August after a pilot program was conducted this past spring.

According to Duffy, the fines from the trial period were decreased by $1,500, meaning that the program has been effective.

Duffy added that they incorporated this new system since the single stream bins are large and open.

In addition, the sustainability officer also emphasized that students have difficulty knowing what can and can’t be recycled in them, leading to contamination.

The new system is supposed to be a more intuitive way to recycle. Duffy said, “The blue bins are aluminum and plastic cans and bottles, and the green bins are paper and cardboard and everything else that is going to go to the landfill.”

The Student Organization for Sustainability Action focuses on these changes from a student perspective. 

Taylor Greene, a senior in sustainability, is the president of SOSA. She said SOSA has been involved with Duffy in implementing the new dual stream bins and helped to set them up last Earth Day.

“We’ve really been working on how to fix our recycling issue on campus,” Greene said. 

Duffy said that campus has a three-year plan to remove all of the old bins and replace them with the new and improved dual system bins that are permanent and can help meet the needs of students.

In order to keep making sustainable changes to campus, Duffy said it was important that students keep asking Facilities for changes and the correct information.

“They should keep pushing,” Duffy said. “Keep pushing for greener things on campus. Ask for improvements when they see them. The campus is here for them.”

#TeamTrees takes root on YouTube and social media

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A new campaign on YouTube has been spreading like wildfire and has caught the attention of famous entrepreneurs: all with the purpose of planting trees.

#TeamTrees, a campaign with the purpose of planting 20 million trees run by YouTuber Mr. Beast and the Arbor Day Foundation, has been gaining traction online for the past few weeks.

The campaign started in May of 2019 when Jimmy Donaldson, known on YouTube as Mr. Beast, was challenged by his YouTube subscribers to plant 20 million trees in celebration of hitting 20 million subscribers.

With the help of Mark Rober, a fellow YouTuber focused on science and “do it yourself” creations, Donaldson launched the campaign on Oct. 25, 2019.

Each dollar donated is equivalent to one tree being planted. The trees will be planted on public forest lands managed by government agencies, at areas where trees are needed the most.

On the week of Oct. 25, many popular YouTubers promoted the campaign on YouTube and other social media platforms.

Donaldson’s video currently has 32 million views, with the first 1,600 trees already planted.

To date, the campaign has planted 14,500,000 trees and top contributors donated thousands of dollars, from people like Elon Musk; Tobi Lutke, the founder of Shopify; Marc Benioff, the owner of TIME magazine and Susan Wojcicki, the CEO of YouTube.

Donaldson went forward with the campaign due to many forest fires and deforestation happening in the past few months.

News outlets such as National Geographic and Reuters posted articles about fires occurring around the world, from California to Lebanon.

“We only have one earth and it’s important that we take care of it,” Donaldson said in his video. “Recently, lots of not-so great things have been happening to forests and people just keep making fun of our generation for retweeting activism and not actually doing something.”

Florida Tech’s Student Organization for Sustainability Action said they are happy to see a campaign like this making waves online.

“It is amazing to see what influencers such as Mr. Beast can accomplish on such a large scale,” said Allyson McCarron, vice president of SOSA. “If #TeamTrees were to happen on campus, we would have to collaborate with Facilities to choose the right trees and places to put them on campus.”

Florida Tech has been recognized as a Tree Campus USA certified campus by the Arbor Day Foundation for over eight years.

Florida Tech is one of 377 schools recognized, and one of the 15 schools in Florida.

According to the Arbor Day Foundation, being a Tree Campus USA campus shows dedication to helping the university’s environment and engaging with the student community.

According to McCarron, every year around Arbor Day, Facilities plants trees in celebration of Florida Tech being a certified Tree Campus.

At the previous Arbor Day event in January, trees were planted near the president’s office with the help of SOSA, Residence Life, Florida Tech Grounds and the Indian Harbor Beach Garden Club.

According to the TeamTrees website, the trees will be planted from January 2020 to no later than December 2022.

Donations can be made at teamtrees.org, Donaldson’s YouTube channel, TeamTrees Facebook fundraiser or #TeamTrees Tiltify fundraiser and will be sent directly to the Arbor Day Foundation to fund tree planting.

“It’s awesome that people of such prominence are actually using their platforms to promote positive environmental change,” said Taylor Greene, president of SOSA. “People in entertainment have become increasingly vocal about issues that matter to them, and that opens the eyes of their fans who may have never had an interest or known about said issue. It’s a beautiful domino effect.”

SOSA hosts first Fall Earth Day

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ASCE and SOSA created a sculpture out of campus waste.
FITV // Quang Dinh

This homecoming, Florida Tech saw dogs on Crawford Green, celebration of the environment, and awareness brought to some of the problems impacting the planet.

The reason: the Student Organization for Sustainability Action held its first Fall Earth Day celebration.

The event was a collaboration between SOSA, the American Society of Civil Engineers, Squamish and RLSC.

Fall Earth Day was held on Wednesday, October 23, on the Crawford Green.

Ken Lindeman, the advisor for SOSA and an ocean engineering and marine sciences professor, has worked with SOSA every year to help them create an engaging week-long celebration of Earth Day in April.

“We have wanted to also do a Fall Earth Day, and there have been some efforts to do that in the past,” Lindeman said. “This year, SOSA, ASCE and other student organizations followed through with a substantive event.”

Allyson McCarron, the vice president of SOSA, discussed the initial idea of collaborating with another organization, ASCE.

“We have a diverse group of people in SOSA in terms of majors and could have done it as a group, but more organizations are getting interested in sustainability and we thought that ASCE would do a great job to help bring our vision to life,” McCarron said.

McCarron said the original idea of Fall Earth Day was born last fall.

“We wanted to increase the importance of Earth Day on campus with the idea that we shouldn’t just have one day in the spring that we celebrate it,” McCarron said.

Earth Day is celebrated every year on April 22, and both SOSA and ASCE recognize the importance of that day and the message that it presents to people.

For Fall Earth Day, a number of organizations were invited.

McCarron said these organizations included Keep Brevard Beautiful, Facilities, Alumni Affairs, and the CLEO Institute.

The Brevard Zoo has a program known as “Restore Our Shores,” which is a project that focuses on conservation, especially on the shorelines.

The project aims to protect locations such as the Indian River Lagoon and other bodies of water with shorelines.

Oysters and mangroves are examples of some organisms that the Brevard Zoo team helps protect.

The sculpture that was designed from collected trash and waste as a result of campus clean-ups attracted a lot of attention.

McCarron said, “I am very proud of what all of us accomplished and hope that it opened some of the eyes of students on campus.”

SOSA takes part in Orlando climate strike

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Protesters hold signs about climate change outside Orlando city hall.
Photo by Florida Tech SOSA.

This past week millions of people participated in the global climate strike.

A small fraction of those striking were Florida Tech students, demanding a change to protect and preserve the planet.

Nearly two weeks ago, Florida Tech’s Student Organization for Sustainability Action sent four of its chapter members to Orlando to attend a Friday’s For Future climate strike outside city hall.

“The energy was amazing, and seeing 200 people plus unite for a cause that they are equally, if not more, passionate about than I am was an unforgettable experience,” said Taylor Greene, SOSA president.

The Friday’s For Future is a movement started by 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, which so far has activated weekly student strikes in 150 countries.

Participating Orlando organizations and activist groups included IDEAS for Us, the Sunrise Movement Orlando, Fridays For Future USA and Fleet Farming.

These groups encouraged participants to wear green and raise their recyclable homemade signage high in the sky, reflecting the climate action they would like to see in Florida.

Guest speakers included Florida democratic state representative Anna Eskamani as well as others raising awareness for climate change.

“One of the things that resonated the most with me was when I heard Anna Eskamani preach that she didn’t run for office to talk about what was impossible, rather to fight for what is possible,” Greene said. “That was something that really spoke to me and demonstrated that there are people out there trying to do good.”

Tagging along with Greene were fellow SOSA members Jack Weaver and Jeffrey King, both of whom are juniors majoring in ocean engineering and minoring in sustainability.

Both students described attending the strike as “being a part of history and fighting for something our generation believes in.”

“I think some people believe that climate change doesn’t affect us,” Weaver said. “But people are dying as a result all around the world.”

According to Weaver, climate change goes beyond affecting the animals, it has repercussions on a human level that the majority of society should care about.

While Florida Tech’s SOSA chapter and other environmentally conscious activists rallied in Orlando, the scene in New York City was amplified.

World leaders, corporate executives and activists gathered at the United Nations Climate Action Summit.

A collaborative effort was made to turn promises into reality in hopes of global warming and rising CO2 emissions.

Topics such as the benefits and use of renewable energies were debated as well as setting a goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050.

“You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words, and yet, I’m one of the lucky ones,” Thunberg stated as she addressed presidents, prime ministers, and other diplomats. “People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing.”

While there has been tremendous outrage and protests globally with frustration for the destruction of ecosystems, there has also been distress and efforts on a more local note.

For example, the same day as the strike in Orlando, there was also a rally and march held that night at the Eau Gallie Causeway hosted by young Brevard teens.

When she wasn’t marching along side community members with decorated signs covered from head to toe in green attire, Florida Tech senior and marine biology major Erin Casellas was trying to get signatures for the Florida Climate Pledge.

Casellas works as a campus ambassador for CLEO Institute, a Miami based non-profit that strives to educate and promote climate action.

By obtaining signatures Casellas was gaining support from those who want to protect Florida’s biodiversity.

“I think that a lot of people see how beautiful a place like Melbourne is, and we have these amazing ecosystems, but people don’t understand how fragile they are,” said Casellas when asked why some may not believe in climate change.

After a week full of awareness for the environment, the invaluable resources it provides us and the necessary action society needs to take for future generations, SOSA wanted to close their week of insightful environmental mandates and motives to “stand for what we stand on” with a tree planting ceremony on the Crawford Green.

Students planting the Gumbo Limbo tree in front of Crawford. Photo by Francesco Isaza.

A Florida Gumbo Limbo Tree, also known as the iconic south Florida tree, which is expected to grow up to 60-feet tall, was planted in a ceremonial atmosphere.

“Today, Friday, September 27, 2019, we set the roots for a better future,” Greene said as she introduced her final words of wisdom.

Perhaps the most simple and powerful statement came from a sustainability professor and faculty advisor for SOSA, Ken Lindeman left students with this lasting remark: “You got to come back and look at this tree in 10 years, this thing is going to be epic.”