Rollings rallies for recycling

USD sophomore starts petition on campus to encourage sustainable actions from students and staff

Jennifer Mossuto/Feature Editor/The USD Vista

Lexie Rollings is a sophomore from Northern California who has grown up advocating for the environment. She has always had a passion for taking care of the earth and exhibits that passion through her student-led environmental group on campus. Rollings chose to attend the University of San Diego because it is known to be environmentally conscious and that was an important consideration for her in her college decision process.

In May of 2018, Rollings discovered a problem with sustainability on campus, the particular thing that encouraged her to attend the university. The activist inside of her was disappointed and wanted to get involved.

“One of our friends who worked at Aromas off-handedly mentioned in May that Aromas combined recycling and compost with trash at the end of the day,” Rollings said.

This surprised some students because these are several distinctly separated trash bins inside of Aromas, labeled for recycling, compost, and trash. Rollings continued to ask questions about Aromas’ habits, but soon discovered that all of the campus eateries combined the three at the end of the day as well.

Rollings then created a petition calling for action. The petition started by Rollings explained that USD was “green-washing” our campus, representing a false public image surrounding sustainability. Rollings and her 826 signatures called upon administration to uphold the university’s sustainability commitment.

“When the petition was first created, Dining Services wasn’t happy with us,” Rollings said. “We got some angry emails demanding that we stop publicizing the petition with signs we posted in Aromas, the SLP, and La Paloma. Dining Services was frustrated with the way we were publicizing information, but we thought it was necessary for students to be aware of what was happening. We continued to post informational posters around campus despite being asked to take them down. Dining Services contacted us within a day of the petition being public.”

After the backlash she received, Rollings met with USD dining services and the Sustainability Office alongside a group of friends with the same passion for environmental issues in order to discuss the petition and what can be changed in the future.

“During this meeting we learned that the Office of Sustainability receives minimal funding and whenever they see something that they want to change, they go through other clubs or organizations to get something changed,” Rollings said. “We learned that the county of San Diego does not do post-consumer composting. We learned that if 10 percent of a recycling bin is contaminated with food waste or trash, it is no longer recyclable.”

Since then, Rollings and her environmental group have made successful efforts to remove compost bins across campus. They have also installed better signage on trash and recycling bins in La Paloma, Aromas, and the Student Life Pavilion (SLP). The SLP signs specifically encourage students to leave food on their plates for the biodigester, and the process for leaving dishes in the pavilion has noticeably been changed this year.

Rollings explains that this movement was and continues to be near and dear to her heart. It began as an accidental slip of information, and turned into a way for her to get involved on campus and help her community.

“This petition and movement is important to me because USD prides itself on being a green campus and I wanted to hold them accountable to the promise of practicing sustainability,” Rollings said.

The University of San Diego has received recognition for being a leader in sustainability as well as being in the top 50 green college campuses in the U.S., ranking at No. 23 according to the Princeton Review. This high ranking left Rollings originally thinking an issue with recycling and composting would never occur at USD.

This petition went around back in May, but Rollings and her group continue to look out for sustainability on campus. They work often with Dining Services to ensure they are being environmentally conscious. More concrete changes are being made such as changing the design of recycling bins. Instead of having a large opening to the recycling bin, the opening has been modified to discourage people from tossing trash into the bins.

“Starting next week, we will begin to be featured in Blue Buzz on a weekly basis in the form of informational facts and suggestions related to sustainability at USD and in general,” Rollings said.

These suggestions have the potential to help students and faculty understand how to successfully recycle and where to find other resources to help them be environmentally conscious.

In the near future, Rollings and her group will be meeting with UCSD’s sustainability team to take notes from them and encourage the growth of USD’s programs as well.

There is room for growth at any campus when it comes to sustainability, and Rollings hopes that she inspires students, staff, and administration to be as sustainable as possible. Correctly recycling, composting, and throwing away our trash is a step forward for everyone.