The Earth Day Every Day team kicked off the Fall 2024 semester with an interactive Flex Day workshop on supporting campus sustainability!
This workshop was an opportunity to learn more about what Skyline students, staff and faculty do to promote sustainability and make every day Earth Day at Skyline College.
We kicked off with reflections around what we love about good old Planet Earth and brainstorming for how Skyline can be a more sustainable institution. Ideas ranged from energy sources, to improved signage and education around waste sorting, to a silly & fun event to name the worms in our worm bin!
This icebreaker brainstorm was followed by an introduction to members of the SMCCD community who collaborate to raise awareness and improve our collective action around sustainability at Skyline College.
If you’re interested in participating in environmental action at Skyline and SMCCCD, we welcome you to join us!
- Join the S.A.G.E student club!
- Connect with Skyline’s sustainability group at earthdayeveryday@my.smccd.edu
- Join the District Sustainability Committee!
After these intros, we launched into a waste sorting activity! Staff and faculty took time to learn and review as a group how to sort landfill, recycling, and compost on campus, using the waste disposed by faculty and staff from the Flex Day lunch as a timely example.
And the results are in:
- We did great with identifying compost — woohoo! O ur attendees did a great job spotting the organic matter that goes into compost
- Recycling was an area for growth. Recycling is tricky, and industry knows it! This is further complicated because sorting rules may differ between counties. The most confusing item: black plastic!
- “Black plastic is hard because of physics!” -Qimmah Tamu. Read more about why recycling systems can’t sort black plastics
- Additionally, food-contaminated items that would be recycling must be placed into the compost (ie paper and cardboard) or into the landfill bin (heavily contaminated plastics).
- Pro-tip: Grab a napkin and wipe off your plastic food containers before recycling. Don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be spotless! 95% clean is great.
- Landfill can be confusing because some things seem recyclable or compostable but really aren’t — for example, the ‘compostable’ forks often cannot break down fast enough to be go in the compost bin, so they must go in the landfill ):
- And don’t forget to dump out your liquids before tossing your waste! Use the handy “Pour Bin”, currently located near the bookstore, or water the plants outside before tossing your bottles
The session wrapped up with discussion on incorporating sustainable, Earth-friendly and/or climate change-related activities, projects, or discussions in our classes or roles. Check out more on teaching and learning these topics in our library guide on sustainability.
This session got us excited for a fresh semester of environmental action! Thank you to all who attended, and we hope to see you at our upcoming events this fall!
