Andrew Crighton
Staff Writer
Get ready to reduce, reuse and recycle: the Idaho State University Green Up Club is making a comeback.
For almost three years ISU did not have any form of environmental awareness club.
Subsequent to its president leaving, the Green Up Club became inactive just a few years ago. This year, Jonny Henderson is the new acting president of the club, and was the driving force behind the reinstatement.
His passion to restart the club presented itself when Henderson spent his senior year of high school as an exchange student in Germany, where recycling is almost ubiquitous. Germany does not have the space to simply throw away most of its waste, with only 137,847 square miles of area, almost 27 times less than that of the United States.
“I went to the Student Involvement Center and asked something about if there was a recycling club or anything like that,” said Henderson. “Because there was nothing related to that, I just took what they had and contacted the last president and we’re working to reactivate it.”
To restart the Green Up Club, Henderson needed to get 12 full-fee paying students to become members and to register through the university.
“Right now we have 12, but with a couple more who are expressing interest. [We’re] still small, still a startup, but a lot of the faculty have expressed interest,” said Henderson. “It’s just getting people to know us, and then the students will follow, I’m sure.”
There are no requirements to join the club.
The Green Up Club has five main goals: to work with ISU facilities to improve waste management and recycling, to involve the community, to educate on environmental awareness, promote renewable energy and to allow Pocatello to be recognized as eco-friendly.
Meetings will most likely be held every other week, but a location has yet to be finalized.
One of the plans to help improve recycling on campus is through composting in hopes of reducing the amount of food waste at ISU.
“We’ve thought about maybe working with Chartwells, maybe taking their food scraps, not on the used side but as they’re preparing the food, any of the food scraps they were going to throw away and take those and compost that to use in the campus greenhouses or starting a garden or just selling the compost for funds for our club,” said Henderson.
Another possible activity is a re-use garage sale, where people will drop off items they no longer need and would otherwise throw away, and resell them to help fund the club, while what is not sold can then be properly disposed, all of which would help reduce waste going into landfills.
“Love of the outdoors goes hand-in-hand with [environmental preservation],” said Henderson.
According to Henderson, with a diverse group of people who are seeking different majors, spanning several departments, the Green Up Club will use these people as avenues to spread awareness and information.
“There wasn’t a club so it was easy,” said Henderson about his choice to reestablish the club. “There were two choices: not do anything or do something, and reactivating the club made the most sense.”
