Everyone always told me that college will be some of the best years of my life and that it goes by quickly. Man were they right. I remember going through the motions of orientation in the summer of 2014 and it feels like an eternity ago. To this day I couldn’t tell you what any of those presentations were about, except for one, and that was from the Environmental Center. I think it was one of the few presentations I actively listened to. I remember staying after and chatting with Sarah Dawn Haynes, the Environmental Center's Outreach and Engagement Coordinator, about the Center for some time.
That conversation really supported my interest in chasing my environmental passion. I thought that volunteering with the E-Center would be a great place for me to gain more experience in the environmental field.
My previous experience was solely from my role as the president of my high school’s Environmental Club through which I led students to the shores of New Jersey for beach clean-ups, sand dune plantings, beach protection movements and similar activities. Volunteering with the Environmental Center was the perfect transition for me and I knew I wanted to get as involved as I could.
Fast forward about a month, where I was in Boulder and had a paying job at the E-Center - I was incredibly stoked! I was hired on with the Recycling Outreach Crew, where I still work as a member of the team, except now we are the Zero Waste Outreach Crew to emphasize composting, reuse and other sustainable habits in addition to recycling. The greatest part was that it never felt like work, and it still doesn’t. I was getting paid to share my passion for sustainability with students, just like in high school. Except now it was to a much bigger audience. I found myself reaching out to people I had never seen before in my life and may never see again. The fact that those moments may be the only time I would ever see that individual was exciting to me and I hoped to be memorable in my sustainability messages. It was, and still is, a very rewarding role.
Four years later, I’ve learned more than I ever imagined through a college job. I know the ins and outs of recycling and composting here in Boulder. I have brought this knowledge with me to summer jobs, to the rugby team I play with here at CU, to my home and family back in New Jersey and anywhere else that I can promote sustainable habits. It is a passion and knowledge that has been engrained in me. If it wasn’t ingrained in me from my time spent sorting recycling at the Recycling Operations Center on campus, it has definitely been ingrained in me from the long, sometimes cold nights spent sorting compost and recycling after home football games.
Over these four years, I have participated in over 40 compost sorts. Whether they followed a football game and were in the rain, or followed a basketball game and were in the snow, my hands were deep in compost bags pulling out aluminum foil, candy wrappers or beer cans. Anything that didn’t belong there stood no chance of getting past me. Digging through other people’s leftover food to ensure proper composting changed my habits and truly drove home the importance of sustainability. Those long nights spent elbow-deep in compost fuel my passion for sustainability and that passion fuels my conversations with people who don’t yet recycle or compost. Generally by the end of those conversations I have helped that individual rethink their actions as a result of a newly found understanding.
My career with the E-Center and Zero Waste hasn’t been limited to compost sorts. I’ve personally gone door-to-door with the Zero Waste crews of every residence hall asking for freshmen to give me their recycling. Most are baffled but then get super stoked, especially if they have a ton of recycling. This gives us the chance to pick out contaminants with new students, to help them understand the ways of green living in Boulder, and to help them understand the difference between and importance of composting and recycling. This is when we attempt to motivate people to help in the diversion effort. We try to make these interactions memorable and influence those students to take this new knowledge to live sustainably through their time at CU and, hopefully, into the rest of their lives. It’s really rewarding to have somebody say “oh, wow, I always thought that since it’s plastic that it could go in the recycling. I’ll keep that in mind going forward.” Hearing comments like these gets me excited to keep going and talking to as many people as I can to spread awareness and hopefully help make a change in the wasteful world we live in.
Another great part about working at the E-Center is that, yes, we are all part of different teams, but we are united in a singular cause and work hard to get the job done. It is a great family and organization to be a part of. The connections I’ve made with coworkers is awesome and I wouldn’t trade the friendships I’ve made and the experiences I’ve had for anything. I am stoked to carry these experiences and knowledge with me into the world as I prepare to leave college and, sadly, Boulder.
As of now I plan to work up in Alaska for my second summer as a backcountry guide. Many great things come from leading backpacking trips into the backcountry of the Alaskan interior, but most specifically is the interactions I make with the men and women I lead out there. I always stress the importance of sustainable living and hiking in the backcountry, and I try to promote these habits to stick with these individuals into their lives back home. My goals out there are that if I can get them to adopt these habits for their 15-20 days they spend in Alaska with me, then they can take these habits home and promote them to their friends and family. All it takes is a little education to individuals here and there and next thing you know a community I have never been to is living more sustainably because of what I shared with a few individuals of that community - thoughts like that keep me going! Another great part about the job is I sometimes get individuals who have doubts about climate change. After 10-20 days of discussion about the issue, they generally have a new understanding of climate change and the importance individual actions play in it.
Regardless of my future occupation, the individuals and events I have worked with and experiences I have gained at the Environmental Center will never leave me and will forever fuel my passion to educate and promote a sustainable future.