Salisbury University students raising awareness on environmental concerns this Earth Week
SALISBURY, Md. – “I want to be a part of the fight for a livable future for everyone,” Wolf said.
It’s Earth Week and students at Salisbury University are boots on the ground raising awareness on the importance of a healthy environment. This year’s theme is ‘Investing in Our Planet.’
“Our brains are kind of like sponges. We want to learn all these things and we’re here to learn,” Feinauer said. “Environmental issues are really important, so this is really a great place to get people interested or start to get interested in environmental issues.”
SGA’s Sustainability Director Jenna Feinauer says it’s also crucial for students to be aware of the environmental concerns right in their own backyard. “The Eastern Shore is a huge poultry producer, so we do have some environmental issues from there. Another is that we live so close to Ocean City. There’s a lot of pollution there and litter,” Feinauer said.
To kick off the week, students received free potted flowers Monday and were provided information on to keep them thriving. “I mean everybody loves free flowers and flowers are pretty. We wanted to be able to put into perspective why you should care about this. We can’t keep these pretty if you don’t care about it,” Wolf said.
Environmental Students Association President Nicole Wolf says recycling efforts on campus have grown over the past year. She adds it’s getting them one step closer towards their goal of becoming a zero-waste university. “We wouldn’t be using a lot of single-use plastics on campus. We’re really trying to get rid of the coffee cups from Cool Beans or at least lower the use of them from all our coffee spots on campus,” Wolf said.
“For me every day is Earth Day, and every week is Earth Week. We should just continue to keep the things that we learned here, not just during this week, but continue to implement them throughout our lifetimes,” Feinauer said.
The university has a variety of events throughout the rest of the week including a recycle madness. Student organizations will compete to see which can bring in the most recyclables by weight.
There will also be a sustainability panel, allowing students the opportunity to hear from experts on how they can reduce their environmental footprint.
Student organizations also tell 47ABC they’ve partnered with several local environmental organizations in the community like the Sierra Club and Go Green OC.
