BY: Brittany Vallely
The anti-plastic straw movement has become a social media phenomenon for when people order drinks at restaurants, but the AUM’s Earth Companions Organization (ECO) is taking a step further to help the environment on campus.
ECO has created a petition to advocate that the AUM café should use reusable trays and is inviting everyone to contribute.
Kate Saylor, a junior, says AUM ECO was founded in January 2019 in an Honors Program class under the direction of Keith Kawczynski.
“We were tasked with developing a project that would make a difference in the community. As environmentally conscious people we decided to attempt to make the AUM cafeteria more eco-friendly.”
The reason why is because you may noticed that the trash cans on campus are filled with plastic and Styrofoam to-go boxes from the café. Not all items that people throw away are able to decompose when taken to the landfills, which pile up every day with people’s trash and sits there on Earth’s soil. As a result, ECO would like to implement reusable tableware as well as remove plastic straws and get paper ones.
“Approximately 1300 people are visiting the cafeteria Monday through Thursday,” says Saylor. “We can infer from this that at least 1300 Styrofoam or plastic products are being discarded each of those days.”
Alyssah Locklear, a junior, stated that the university did not require ECO to provide an amount of signatures and that the document has not been turned in yet.
“We are using it to gauge the interest of our cause and we are hoping to gather more signatures over the next month,” Locklear said.
ECO’s goal is to get at least 2,000 signatures and will present the petition to the Chancellor Stockton, administration, and cafeteria officials.
“Our mission is to make AUM more sustainable campus, while also inspiring other communities, organizations, and individuals to pursue greener living,” Locklear said.
Allison Stewart, another member and junior, believes that petition is significant because there are people in Montgomery, specifically at AUM, who want to make a difference and support the cause.
“There is nothing more confronting than knowing that people are on our side,” Stewart said.
If you are interested in the petition you can sign it online by clicking the link in their bio on Instagram @aum_eco or you can e-mail one of the members below.
Contact Information:
Kate Saylor: ksaylor@aum.edu
Alyssah Locklear: alockle3@aum.edu
Allison Stewart: astewa20@aum.edu
Not only will your signature help make campus cleaner and protect the animals that scatter around AUM, but ECO also wants to encourage people to lead a more eco-friendly lifestyle such as using reusable tumblers.
For more ways to get involved, you can become a member of ECO or simply purchase one of their T-shirts in April to help their fundraising efforts.