Aimee Lemrise, sustainability director, helps with the zero-waste station at the recent International Festival.
February 29, 2024
SIU community can participate in sustainability-focused workshops, activities
SIU Carbondale’s Sustainability Office is leading a variety of initiatives with a focus on sustainability and cutting waste on campus. The office is collaborating with the Student Sustainable Farms to offer a series of free workshops for students, faculty and staff. Each workshop is open to the first 30 people to register.
The spring workshop schedule includes:
- Seed bomb blast – Today (Feb. 29), 4:30-6:30 p.m., Student Sustainable Farm, create a unique seed “bomb” to flower your yard. Register online.
- Sustainable Farms Seed Swap at the Student Center Market, March 20, 11 a.m.-noon, trade seeds with other farmers and planters. No registration needed.
- The Art of Papermaking workshop, April 18, 4:30-6:30 p.m., Niah Barbee, a sophomore horticulture major, will help participants create their own paper to use for pressed flowers, classic-old-fashioned stationery and other purposes. It takes place at the Student Sustainable Farm.
- Honeybees and Composting, May 2, 4:30-6:30 p.m. at the Student Sustainable Farm. Angie Kuehl, Jackson County Health Department recycling coordinator, will discuss the value of honeybees and composting, and participants will make beeswax wraps.
The Sustainability Office recently operated a zero-waste station at SIU’s International Food Festival, providing composting and recycling bins to about 1,000 people in attendance with help from local farmers. It operated the station as part of the Campus Race to Zero Waste Competition and diverted 120 pounds of food waste and compostable materials from landfills while providing 150 compostable containers and 75 compostable utensils, generating 76.66 pounds of mixed recycling. The competition closes in April and that’s when final rankings will be announced. Find real-time information about the national event on the Campus Race to Zero Waste website.
The goal is to increase the scale of the project in future years and Aimee Lemrise, sustainability director, said her office already has a plan to work closely with the International Student Council this November for next year’s event.
In addition, she said a lot of interest has been expressed to the Sustainability Office about having a battery bin on campus for recycling so a committee has been formed to study the logistics and safety issues in hopes of offering another zero-waste service to campus.