Bailey Thompson | News Editor
For the entire month of February, Western’s Residence Hall Association has been hosting events as part of their first ever RHA Sustainability Month with the help of both Green Team and National Residence Hall Honorary.
“Eliza (Sleezer, RHA president) was the person who spearheaded this project. What we wanted to do was, as a part of our sustainability theme, we wanted to get a lot of input from Green Team on this,” said Josh Salsbury, sophomore math major and RHA finance director. “It’s really just been a huge collaboration effort.”
As two members of the RHA Executive Board, Salsbury joined with Kaiana Bradley, junior elementary education major and RHA publicist, to talk about all that went into planning this inaugural event.
For the first week’s event, each member of the Executive Board participated in a challenge.
“Last week we had a zero-waste challenge, so everyone on Executive Board carried around a bag for the day and whenever they had to throw something away — whether it was food waste, paper towels from the bathroom, … wrappers and things you would physically put in the trash can — you put in a bag,” said Bradley. “And we all made posts as a social media campaign about how that experience was for us, challenging other people to be conscious of how much waste they produce in a day and how they could change that.”
Salsbury then shared why he actually enjoyed partaking in this challenge.
“When I did mine, I think the biggest thing I noticed was that it was really fun since I had to physically carry around a bag that my friends, when they saw me around campus, could ask what I was doing,” said Salsbury. “And I was able to explain to them about what we’re doing for sustainability month.”
Reaching out more directly to the Western community, a few of the events from the month involved the team providing students with resources that could help them be more sustainable: on Feb. 7, NRHH posted sustainable living tips in the various residential communities; on Feb. 11, RHA gave out five Hydroflasks; and on Feb. 25, RHA will be passing out reusable bags in Valsetz Dining Hall from 11 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Finally, a couple of their more interactive events are their Sustainability Craft night on Feb. 21 from 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. in the Mt. Jefferson Room in Valsetz Dining Hall and a recycling competition between each of the residence halls that is continuing throughout the entire month of February. As of Tuesday, Feb. 19, Landers Hall and Barnum Hall are in the lead for the competition.
Throughout this process, Salsbury and Bradley stated that their hope was to help provide students with tools and to cause them to think about how they can make sustainable choices.
“I’m just hoping that inspires people to maybe make changes to their life and be more conscious, and hopefully with the craft night people can see that you can upcycle and make things for your house — whether it’s decor or storage — out of things that that you already have,” said Bradley.
“It’s really important just to be aware of your impact on the environment. So, anything that we can do to make people just actively think about how they’re affecting the area around them is going to be beneficial,” said Salsbury.
Contact the author at howlnews@wou.edu
Photo courtesy of Paul F. Davis
