Making Red River College Sustainable

The first two years of my post-secondary life were spent at the University of Winnipeg. I quickly became used to composters, advertisements for environmental events/speeches, locally grown and organic foods, and biodegradable dishes and cutlery. So I received quite the "culture shock" when I first arrived at Red River College this year. Although there are recycling bins everywhere, barely any one uses them. There are composters, but they are only used by the culinary arts students when cooking; they are not available for the general student population. When you eat at the two fast food mentality cafeterias, you receive plastic wrapped in plastic with a hint of plastic. Even the "biodegradable" containers from the restaurant don't readily break-down. And there are even two Tim Hortons' on campus, pumping out boatloads of wasted resources every day.

I've gone from being excited about a change of scenary to depressed about the lack of environmental awareness that exists in this school. The crux; I'm in an Environmental Protection Technology program. It's funny that we're being trained in environmental protection, and yet there is no environmental initiative here on campus.

Saying that, I feel the need to help green up this school. I've already started by helping the environmental student group on campus raise awareness and get petitions for banning plastic water bottles. Not sure how this will go over since, right after Christmas break, the school put up posters advertising Coca-Cola in all the eating places.

Hopefull Red River will be up to trading sponsorship from Coca-Cola for making sure that it's students can actually start "Going Places".