Filed under: Community Service/Volunteer, Eating, Food, Spring 2009, Waist Watchers
On Wednesday, May 27, the Action Research Team at UCLA held group presentations about eco-friendly experiments and suggestions for improving human activities and the environment. Of the 8 research programs presented, I wanted to focus on one, Waste Watchers, because I found it most interesting and insightful to my own daily practices.
Through sampling of the De Neve Dining Hall at UCLA, Waste Watchers found that the average student in the dinning hall (for dinner hour) wastes about 0.18 pounds of food, the equivalent of three slices of bread. Because 20,000 people a day are served in the dining hall, that equals to about 3,600 pounds of food per every dinner session! This project started, I believe, 4 years back, and has continued this year into the Action Research Teams to help create ways for students to be more conscious of their wasteful tendencies in the dining halls, for both the benefit of the dining hall budget and the environment.
While weighing in the dining hall scraps, the members of this group found that most of the waste consisted of side dishes, such as peas and carrots. To implement this data into service, De Neve dining hall has plans to offer dishes to students without side dishes. While customizing your food order is already in place, may students don’t realize it or are to lazy to wait for their own personal plate.
Currently, the team is also working with ORL to get pictures of wasted food up on the TV screens outside the dining halls, to remind students not to waste. The team conducted a All-Hill challenge to curb waste one night in the dining halls to raise awareness as well, which resulted in a substantial decrease in food waste for the night.
Food waste is an important issues to our school, both economically and environmentally. Most students don’t realize that the dining hall is a non-profit organization. By wasting this large amount of food, and money, the dining hall is less able to incorporate organic or locally grown food into the dining hall diet. Incorporation of these foods not only supports local economy, but also lowers pollution due to shipping and pesticide use. Environmentally, food waste plays a major role in the bulk mass that is destined for landfills. Currently, the closest landfill to UCLA is about to close within the next few years, so transport costs to move waste to the landfill will drastically increase. My wasting less (or by composting, as other groups mentioned) students can play an active role in reducing costs and the environmental impact of wasted material.
Overall, I found Waste Watchers presentation an eye opener. I have noticed that the dining halls do tend to have a lot of food waste (because it is like all you can eat buffet every day) but I didn’t realize just how much waste there was, and what the impact of this waste would be.
-Ellen Dempsey 703452670
Filed under: 11505682, Community Service/Volunteer, Lecture Series, Spring 2009
This is a review of the talk with Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathi and her effort in community environmental restoration and awareness in her country of Kenya and the whole of Africa itself. Her background as a biologist and founder of the Green Belt Movement as well as her election into Kenyan parliament have garnered her many accolades and prestige. Her initial foray into environmental conservation began with the first United Nations women’s conference in Mexico in 1975; at this summit, her and her fellow colleagues realized the environment was drastically changing and began a program led by women to plant tree’s. This became the Green Belt Movement. However, since then he has met with vigorous opposition from her government, because she began looking into environmental causes and asking questions about how government had been managing resources. Her fight has been devoted to make both government and citizens aware about the destruction and mismanagement of environment and resources. However, her restoration of the environment started from the top down with the need for a responsible government and “bottlenecks” in the development of Kenya. She spoke of how ill left mother countries had left their colonies, which beget a cycle of disrepair and elite uncommitted to the welfare of the people and the natural resources. Another topic that tied into mismanagement was the constant debt of the countries, the lack of fair trade and failures in accountability for the government. During the question portion of the talk, she spoke of the role of women in environmental reconstruction. Her point was that while men and women clearly had a role, women had a larger and perhaps more important role as they where closely tied to agriculture and the land. In the Green Belt Movement, women mostly plant the tree’s and use the money they earn to supplant the household. Maathi also promoted the idea of resource conservation and organizing scientific methods to conserve water in times of draught now more frequent due to depleting resources.
I found that a great deal of Wangari Maathi’s lecture dealt more with political aspects in terms of the pit falls she had to overcome for environmental restoration rather than the how her programs have been implemented. Concurrently, she spoke of the history of her country and the recurring theme of how indebt and her country has been because of previous government which has forced the country to sell its raw resources at extremely low prices to the same countries the owe money to thus creating a vicious cycle they can never get out of. In terms of women’s role in environment conservation, her comments reminded me of the lecture given by Dr. Sandra Harding whom spoke of feminist science and the different role that women take in environmental study and the different methodologies. Both Dr. Harding and Maathi view the role of women in science and more specifically environmental science as working closer to the land and the agriculture which I found to be a very interesting correlation. Overall, her lecture and the question and answer portion was geared to her general philosophy on how to better Kenya and all of Africa via not just environment but socio-political change. However, she successfully tied all the topics back to the inherent problem the there is indeed a need to reform the environments of Kenya as the majority f the land is becoming deserts and draughts much more frequent because of mismanagement relating to and begetting the severe poverty of the country. She did a rather concise and thorough job of explaining the environmental hardships facing her country and some of the possible resolutions.
Bryan Ali
April 18, 2009:
Heal the Bay Beach Clean-Up in Santa Monica
Heal the Bay was having a beach clean-up on Saturday April 18, 2009, and my friend and I decided to rally some people to go with us. No one ended up showing up at 9am, so we took the bus over to Santa Monica beach and were given plastic bags and gloves. The beach was extremely clean already in the close proximity so we made an adventure out of going two miles down the beach where there is a roped off area for bird habitat. To our dismay there were piles of trash; plastic bottle caps, straws, balloons, plastic toys, etc, among the piles of seaweed. It was a little bit confusing as to why Heal the Bay did not designate the protected bird area as part of their clean-up because it takes priority over the unprotected areas.
Nonetheless, we stayed until we had picked up every single piece of trash from the area. We then returned to the Heal the Bay tents only to find them already packed up and taken away. The only thing that remained was a giant pile of about 25 black trash bags stacked up and waiting to be hauled away.
Essentially beach clean-ups are a pathetic attempt at environmental remediation. Realistically speaking there is a great pile of garbage circulating around the Pacific Ocean that is about the area of Texas and is responsible for much of the trash that washes ashore. Not to belittle the gallant effort of beach clean-ups because they’re a great way to get communities involved; however, they’re triage approaches to a greater environmental problem. In this day and age, environmental degradation needs to be handled using larger-scale techniques. Again, essentially beach-cleanups are designed to take trash from one place and put it into a landfill. In a landfill, the trash is able to further continue its degradation of the environment by leeching toxins into groundwater and being blown back into the ocean to repeat the cycle.
We achieved our goal by cleaning up the bird habitat, which I’m sure the birds greatly appreciated. However, I would be much more content to participate in a project that is responsible for massive-scale environmental remediation.
Aubrey Michi
On Friday, May 22, I organized an event with people on my floor of Rieber Terrace to clean up the visitor section of Will Rogers Beach Cleanup. We realized that a lot of organizations tend to target Santa Monica as a cleanup beach which is likely due to the proximity of Santa Monica. We felt that we should take it upon ourselves to initiate a cleanup of a beach that is not that target of attention. We arrived at the beach in the afternoon where there was little visitation by the public, this allowed us to easily scope out the beach and target areas of high trash density that would benefit from our cleanup. We picked out trash and recyclables and put them in the necessary bins. For the most part, the areas next to the shoreline were very clean, as visitors appeared to be very conscience about their trash. However, as we migrated back to the parking lot, we noticed an extensive amount of waste near plants adjacent to the parking lot and around the trashcans despite the trash cans being so close. When asked what were doing by visitors, we simply stated that we were Environmental Science UCLA students that decided to organize a beach cleanup. Most people who interacted with us were very happy to hear students taking initiatives like this. They applauded us for our contributions and volunteer work. We explained any questions they had regarding trash, pollution, etc, in hoping that they take that back home with them and practice methods that they learned from us. It was an inspiring event, as not only did we help clean a beach that we hear little of, but we also got to spread out knowledge to the community.
Andrew Guerra
Filed under: Beach Clean-ups, Community Service/Volunteer, Santa Monica Bay, Spring 2009, UCLA Sustainability
Amrit Otal
On May 25th, my fellow classmates and I went to Santa Monica beach to take part in a beach clean-up. As we began walking on the sand, we immediately began to see pieces of litter strewn all across the beach. As we picked up the trash and made our way toward the shore, we began to see more pieces of plastic in addition to aluminum cans. Plastic in particular was the most heavily present. This beach clean-up reinforced that it is imperative that everyone take an active role to clean and preserve the environment in order to ensure that wildlife and its diversity is preserved. Plastic (and other trash) that enters the ocean is difficult for fish to digest. It results in a decline in the fish population because the fish are unable to eat and digest substantial food sources properly due to the wastes that have entered the ocean and our causing their digestive systems to deteriorate or become impaired. Although picking up trash and wastes on the beach and near the shore keeps that trash from entering the ocean, it does not target the root of the problem and eliminate waste from entirely polluting oceans. In order to accomplish this, people need to take personal initiative and participate in eco-friendly activities and simply exercise their role as good citizens and clean up after themselves. This is beneficial not only for the variety of wildlife that is present in oceans but also for us so that our water supply is clean and free of contaminants. In addition, policies and laws aimed at controlling the dispense of waste need to be passed and enforced properly so that future generations can be guaranteed a safe and clean environment.
Filed under: Beach Clean-ups, Community Service/Volunteer, Dockweiler State Beach
Janelle Doi
Beach Clean-Up
On May 16, 2009, I participated in a beach clean-up at Dockweiler State Beach Park with a small group of students from the Environment 170 class. The club that three other students and I recently organized (the Green Social Network) was hosting the event as a kickoff, and it seemed only natural to invite people from the 170 class to join, considering that most of them are environmental science majors and needed to fulfill the volunteer requirement. After getting the word out about both the club and the beach clean-up, I put together a list of interested people and sent out emails to everyone. I organized carpools so that we could be more environmentally friendly in our transportation mode, and also to encourage everyone to get to know each other. After all, this was intended to be a social event as well as a productive one. We arrived at Dockweiler at about 5pm on Saturday, and the other club leaders and I provided all of the gloves and trashbags needed. We set out, and immediately realized that we had our work cut out for us!
Dockweiler is the only local beach that allows bonfires because it has designated pit areas. While this is great for the beachgoing public, it can be devastating for the marine life if trash is not disposed of in a safe manner. Sadly, we found that very few people clean up after themselves. As we walked along the sand, we picked up trash of all shapes and sizes. We found cigarette butts, plastic bottles, paper plates, napkins, childrens’ toys, balloons, straws, and Styrofoam containers to name a few of the more frequent items. It was unbelievable how much was scattered around, and we only covered a couple miles. We managed to fill at least six large garbage bags in the two hours that we were there.
Beach clean-ups are incredibly important for the health of our oceans. Small pieces of plastic can appear to be food to many fish and other marine animals, but once they’ve ingested them, their systems cannot digest them. Their stomachs fill with this plastic and eventually they starve to death because real food cannot fit. Large pieces of trash can trap small creatures, and some of the things that people discard contain toxins that can pollute the water. If we can catch some of these harmful pieces of rubbish before they make it into the ocean, we are saving thousands of lives. Clean-ups are also important in raising awareness. While we were combing the beach, people were paying attention to us. It’s not every day you see a group of college students volunteering and having fun while doing it! We set a really great example for all of the families who were at the beach enjoying their bonfires. In fact, I actually saw one woman turn back towards the pit that she was leaving and clean up her area after she saw us coming through. She even encouraged her children to help. It felt amazing to know that we were making a difference, and that we had just taught someone the value of picking up their trash. I sincerely hope that the next time her and her family decide to go to the beach, they will remember that experience and maybe even set an example for somebody else.
Filed under: Community Service/Volunteer, Student Projects, UCLA Sustainability
On Wednesday, May 27th, eight different action research teams presented their topics at the Rieber Fireside Lounge from 5-7. All teams were professional and informing about their cause or idea for change. This event was put on by the Education for Sustainable Living Program and the Institute of the Environment. It definitely taught me to be more aware of the environment and I was glad that I was able to attend this meeting.
Even though all the presentations were unique and interesting, one presentation that stuck out to me was about the initiative of changing the grass on the intramural field to turf. The team even surveyed a random sample of almost 300 UCLA students and a high percentage of 71% stated that they either did not mind the change or they would fully endorse it.
This team presented the audience with the ridiculously high number of gallons of water used to maintain the field and showed a contrast if there would be turf installed. The difference was vastly significant; the team recorded to potentially be able to save billions of gallons a year. However, they also stated that the random sample of students surveyed m might not be students that ever used the field. They stated that since it was commonly used by the soccer, rugby and lacrosse teams they should take a random sample of students on those teams. After surveying the teams, again, almost 70% recorded that they did not mind or would fully support it.
I feel that this alteration, although may be a little pricey at first, would definitely be a wise investment on our part. Because not only would it be environmentally beneficial but also economically savvy because great amounts of money would be saved because water bills would significantly decrease.
There were several other groups that presented different situations and ways for drastic change. There were even some groups that tested out ways for change (such as the paper towel one written on the poster about 238 students monitored behaviorally for 5 days, saving $2700 dollars by switching to recycled napkins). It was very inspiring to be a part of because the presenters were all UCLA students; some of who are my close friends, and to see what they have been working on for the past two quarters was really motivating.
Filed under: 11505682, Community Service/Volunteer, Santa Monica Bay, Spring 2009, stone canyon creek, UCLA Sustainability, Watershed Restoration
This past Saturday I participated in the Stone Creek Canyon restoration project. It is an ongoing project organized by the Santa Monica Bay Keepers. As volunteers our main jobs are to remove invasive species (weeds) and do other clean-up jobs. Along with a small group of other students and volunteers, I first helped to move several piles of wood from the creek bank to the dumpster. We helped one another by having several people make small piles of wood for everyone else to carry and made a small path cutting across the bank. By moving the wood we were opening space on the bank for more native plants to be planted and just clearing the area. We moved both small pieces and larger trunk-sized pieces of wood. After finishing this task, the group I was working with moved to the other bank and joined the rest of the volunteers with weeding. Everyone was working to clear the bank of grasses and other weeds that are non-native to California. There were several native plants which had already been planted and were marked with small flags. We were all careful to not pull these plants, but to remove all invasive species from around them.
During the restoration I met several people from my class and also some people who did not go to UCLA. They were members of a local Key Club who participate in many of these projects. Making these social connections within the environmental community is one of the reasons I really like to participate in local projects. There is a sharing of information and an immediate connection about the project you’re are working on. Along with the actual restoration that is occurring, the creation of a community to continue the work is very valuable.
During this project we were applying conservation biology and ecology principles. We are trying to reestablish a native Californian ecosystem and create a natural place on campus. By removing invasive species we reduce competition for the wanted native species. After the native plants have been established, theoretically they will be superior competitors to the invasive species and be able to thrive without further human intervention. Also, I’m sure the native plants are planted in a way to help establish the correct succession. This is a very small area though, so it will be harder to create a stable ecosystem with strong populations when there exist so few individuals in the system. When populations are small, they are more easily affected and Stone Creek Canyon will probably always need a bit of human help to continue to thrive.
Filed under: Beach Clean-ups, Community Service/Volunteer, Spring 2009 | Tags: Ocean Beach, San Francisco
Megan Miller
On May 24th, I participated in a Beach Clean Up (sponsored by SF Surfrider) in San Francisco, CA. The clean up took place on Ocean Beach in San Francisco (around Lincoln street). I, along with the rest of the group, cleaned a span of Ocean Beach for several hours. I took a trash bag that was provided for me from the sponsors of the event and I picked up any pieces of plastic or trash that I could see throughout the beach. I participated in this event with other members of my family (my sister, brother, and parents) because I was home for the weekend for a family celebration. This event was particularly important to me because I attended high school only a few blocks from the location of the clean up. I visited the beach regularly during high school; however, I never attended an organized clean up. This event made me realize how vital my participation, and the participation of everyone in the local community, was in keeping our beaches clean and healthy.
The motivation of this community service activity was to reduce pollution. The immense amount of garbage (largely due to non-biodegradable plastic) in the ocean, particularly the Pacific Ocean, is harming the local and non-local ecosystems within the ocean. Furthermore, a detriment to the local ecosystem, caused by pollution, also causes a domino effect in consequential detriments. For example, a large portion of global warming is caused by excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. One mechanism to help relieve this intensive stress on the atmosphere and help reduce global warming is phytoplankton, which fixes carbon into the deep sea where the carbon can remain harmlessly indefinitely. However, the excessive amounts of trash and plastic in the ocean can harm the phytoplankton population, thus creating a chain effect between pollution and an increase in carbon dioxide (or a decrease in carbon dioxide alleviation) and an increase in global warming. Although a beach clean up does not fix the source of the problem, the clean up serves as a last-resort attempt to remove the pollutants before the garbage enters the water and merely contributes to the enormous problem that already exists within the ocean. When the trash enters the ocean, it joins the mass of garbage within the sea and the problem becomes far less manageable. Further efforts to help reduce the problem would include efforts to reduce littering, encourage recycling, reduce the manufacturing of plastics, and educate people on the harm that is being caused by consumerism.
Filed under: Community Service/Volunteer, Spring 2009, Student Projects, UCLA Sustainability | Tags: Student Action Research Teams, student research
Leanna Rodriguez
This past Wednesday, May 27, the Action Research Team at UCLA held group presentations about eco-friendly experiments and suggestions for improving human activities and the environment. Unfortunately I could not stay the entire two hours so I only saw four of the eight presentations. The four groups whose presentations I was able to see each conducted their own studies here at UCLA in order to estimate exactly how much energy, water, and garbage is wasted and/or not properly taken care of on this campus, and to see how many students here are actually interested in doing something to address this issue.
The theme I saw in each presentation was that most people around the world who are so wasteful, are this way unknowingly. Therefore, I realized that as a student attending these presentations, my role was to learn these facts, understand what I can do to help the environment, and spread the word around in order to educate others of the facts.
The first presenters who went up called themselves Team Turf, as their goal was to figure out the pros and cons of replacing the natural grass in the IM Field here at UCLA with artificial grass. One major pro they discovered was that the cost of maintaining natural grass was approximately $8-9 million while the cost of maintaining artificial grass was about half that at $3-4 million. Therefore, not only is the turf less expensive to maintain, it would also cut down on water usage. Natural grass requires 6.4 million gallons of water per year while turf only requires under a million gallons a year. As good as these pros sound, there are a few cons that have held this school back from this option. One con is that, with the weather we are used to in Southern California, turf would require a heating system during the winter and a cooling system during the summer to keep it at a steady temperature. The downside of this fact is indeed that this heating/cooling system would use energy and we are trying to help the environment not hurt it further. Also, UCLA, especially the IM field, is host to a myriad of events each year, and so many events cause little harm to natural grass, but are very damaging to artificial grass. One possible solution Team Turf concluded was that the field remain half natural and the other half be replaced with artificial.
The next three teams, through their research, found that UCLA students are very much interested in helping the environment and do not need to be bribed to do so. The team who conducted the “Zero-Waste Floor” Experiment and the group who called themselves the “Waste Division and Diversion” both conducted almost entirely the same experiment, with the small difference in where the experiment was conducted. The first of the two studied where students who live in the dorms throw what kind of trash away, while the other group did the same on campus, mainly in Ackerman. Both groups went about their studies by routinely grabbing a bag of trash from a certain spot and weighing it, then sorting through the trash, and weighing it again. What they found was that after sorting and separating recyclables, composts, and actual trash that can go nowhere else but a landfill, much less trash is thrown into landfills than if not sorted out.
The last of the presentation that i saw was by the Energy Group. Their objective was to look at targets in which they can conserve energy by using two methods: 1)monitoring where energy is being wasted, and 2) surveying UCLA students to see who was willing to help. Some steps being taken at UCLA include possibly installing motion sensitive lights in the restrooms in the dorms, otherwise they may stay on all night though no one is using them.
In conclusion, with the wonderful research these great people have done, we have so many options available so that we can already take action in saving the environment, or at least slowing down its depletion. The next step that needs to be taken is educating others and encouraging the community to take action.
