Imperial College: the Environmental Status Quo
According to the Environmental Technology MSc dissertation `A Solid Waste Audit of Imperial College: Directions for Sustainable Waste Management' [Farah Mahmud, 2005], Imperial College generates 56.7 tonnes of solid waste per year - at the time of the report, a negligible amount of the generated waste got recycled. This in itself is shocking enough, however what makes matters worse is that 73% of said waste was recyclable and 16% compostable, leaving a mere 11% of the solid waste.
For every tonne of paper that is recycled, the world saves: 17 trees (35 feet tall), 30,000 litres of water, 4,000 kWh electricity (enough to power a 3 bedroom house for one year), 2 barrels of oil (enough to run the average - American - car for 1260 miles), 3.2 cubic yards of landfill space (one family size pick-up truck) and 95% of air pollution.*
Now multiply these numbers by a factor of 26 and that's the environmental damage that we (the members of Imperial College South Kensington campus) cause every year just from paper waste. Furthermore, if we were to recycle some of this waste, not only would we be improving our environmental footprint, we would save a significant amount of money.
According to David Smith (South Kensington Campus Manager), the `figures for recycling at South Kensington Campus are very encouraging.' Mr Smith has been Campus Manager for 6 months and in that time he has worked alongside Phil Evans (Environmental Manager and Felix Hero of the Year) to implement recycling. They have already introduced limited paper, glass, cardboard and can recycling - plastic can be expected soon - but this is all still mostly out of public sight.
Mr Smith says `although these figures represent a major step forward in recycling we still have a way to go in reducing the amount of waste currently leaving this Campus and heading to Landfill. I am confident however that with the escalation of our recycling initiatives across the College we will be able to achieve even better figures for the future.'
However, despite the significant improvement in the last 6 months, Mr Smith and Mr Evans know there's more to be done. They promise to have paper recycling bins placed in every office and at all normal waste bin points, starting in the next two weeks. They are `expecting to see a significant reduction in that 53% [currently not recycled], but we won't know with any certainty for another few months.'
But is this really enough? It would be unfair to blame the administration alone for these embarrassing statistics and to depend on them for significant change to occur. The first step to reducing our environmental footprint starts by reducing what we consume - that is we must alter our mindless consumption of natural resources.
What Does the Future Hold?
It could be suggested that environmental degradation - be it global warming, cutting down of rain forests, elimination of natural resources, so on - is not a problem that we will face, but rather a problem that we currently face. Despite arguments against human caused global warming - generally indicating that the global climate has varied in the past - we cannot ignore the fact that we have reached a 55 million year record level of air pollution (390ppm).
Whether polar ice caps melt, summers get hotter and winters colder, or sea levels rise flooding major thriving cities around the world, may possibly not be our biggest problem. We have reached an environmental unknown, which means we are currently using ourselves as test rats and there's no quick fix to it. We cannot just remove pollutants from the air - in fact we already have a hard enough time reducing how much we emit on a day-to-day basis.
So how can an individual really make a difference? Is the environment really something within our reach to improve?
Green Week
Last term a group of Imperial students came together to write a letter to the Rector about the College's Environmental Policy. The group requested information regarding the policy and its seemingly nonexistent applications. The College responded welcoming the group's concerns and further interaction.
Following the letter to the Rector, this same group of students and many others, have gathered to organise the College's first ever `Green Week' which will take place this coming week - 6th-10th of March. The week will aim to raise student and staff awareness towards environmental issues.
The events will range from presentations by top researchers at Imperial as well as outside speakers within specialist fields, to fuel demonstrations and mock ups, workshops and much more! Not only will you be able to find out how you can lower your personal environmental footprint, you'll have the opportunity to find out how Imperial College and various companies have committed to this problem. Hopefully we will all come away with open eyes and minds to some of the problems we are facing and some of the solutions which are at our doorstep.
