Ever since I was little I have felt pulled towards the environment. Whether it was helping with an organization called Save the Frogs when I was in third grade or building birdhouses for my girl scout Gold award, I have always tried to impact the environment as much as I could.
And right now, my focus is on plastics. I have always tried to recycle, but I didn’t know how to properly recycle until my senior year of high school, or so I thought. When I came to DePauw, I new that I had a whole new realm of information to explore. That, of course, started with environmentalism. I genuinely learned about what can and cannot be recycled (and the in’s and out’s of recycling this semester) in my Rethinking the Environment class for the Environmental Fellows Program here at DePauw.
The main parts of this class that have helped me gain the most experience has been through this Precious Plastics project, and through interviewing Suzi Denton, the head of Ray’s Trash Service here at DePauw (the link to what you can and cannot recycle with Ray’s can be found here: https://raystrash.com/what-can-i-recycle/). Additionally, we spoke with the head of Republic Services, a recycling service here in Greencastle. (Republic Services recycling in Greencastle: https://www.republicservices.com/recycling?tab=residential).
I have found, personally, that the best way of learning is by teaching other people. And thus, I found myself absorbing the most information when we went and taught the fourth graders at the nearby TZ elementary school. The fourth graders were much more interested in plastic and waste than expected. They had so many questions and comments to make. I answered all of the questions that they asked me the best that I could. The kids challenged me to think in new ways that I had not previously thought of. Through the kids’ level of interest, they gave me hope that the younger generations could potentially be more environmentally-conscious.
Recently in class we have been making our poster boards which we will eventually present in the coming weeks. Our class periods this week and last week have been focused on covering the organization of the material, different layouts and formats in which we should use, etc. Yesterday we presented the drafts of our posters to the seniors of the Environmental Fellows Program. After our presentations we had a Q & A with the seniors where they asked us questions and gave us advice on how we can improve our posters.
As humans, our main focus, or at least one of our main focuses, should be to restore the environment back to its former state. I know the DePauw Precious Plastic initiative won’t fix everything, but I’m hoping that it will at least inspire other people to help the environment as we are trying to do. I honestly feel like I am not doing enough regarding plastic, but we can only do so much. We have limited resources and by using the knowledge that we have gained I believe that we can make the most out of them.
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