A recent guest column from Shana Weber, the University's sustainability manager, listed many longterm goals for the University to become a greener campus. Princeton is investing in new technologies and, over the next few years or decades, is converting the University's buildings into more environmentally friendly ones.
More than that, however, can be done. Here, I recommend simple, specific solutions the University can implement to make Princeton a more green-friendly campus, without having to give buildings a complete makeover. You won't like the last two, but hear me out.
1. Turn off the hallway lights. I noticed this last year: The hallway lights are never turned off. Not during holiday breaks, not even for the entire summer — they're always on! How many light bulbs does the University go through each year? Electric consumption from light bulbs in hallways must be ridiculous. One possible solution employed in some academic buildings is to install motion detectors. This change would be fairly effective during class hours and most effective late at night, when very few people walk around the hallways. Plus, it looks cool when your path lights up in front of you like in the movies.
2. Individual Plastic/Glass/Can Recycle Bins for every room. Every room already gets its own trash bin and recycling bin — so why not a glass/plastic containers bin? The gray cylindrical bins are sparse and are located in inconvenient locations in many dormitories. It's so much easier to just dump it in the trash can outside your door than walking through your entryway to the can bin. Is purchasing a whole new set of recycling bins worth it? It might sound ridiculous, but people consume beverages in their rooms all the time. And especially since the new alcohol policy has been established and requires greater surveillance by RCAs, along with a more enforced wristband policy on the Street, the most likely result is an increase in room parties with more bottles of beer and more handles of liquor. Definitely lots more beverage consumption, and definitely lots more to recycle.
3. Charge money for using laundry machines. Insert a quarter into the machine and do your load. Installing the money collectors could be costly, but they would pay for themselves in no time at all. Free laundry has been awesome (it was one of the perks my April Hosting host told me about that got me to come here), but charging for it will reduce the number of times we use the washers and dryers, and this would save water and electric consumption. I've seen cases where just one pair of pants or just one towel is dried in a dryer while piles of wet clothes are waiting in line, causing a massive traffic jam. Charging 25 cents would also relieve problems people are having with laundry services on campus by shortening the long lines at the laundry rooms. And instead of buying or replacing more machines, the University could charge students and turn a profit. A convenient option would be to charge it to their account by swiping their prox, but that might be too convenient and students could freely charge their parents for their laundry — kind of reminds me of how some freshmen bring back their dirty laundry during Thanksgiving break to give to their parents to do.
4. No more free printing. Yeah, I said it. I haven't heard of another school that allows students to enjoy free, unlimited printing (but if there are, please let me know). The common system among several schools is that students receive a quota proportional to the number of classes they take — maybe 600-800 sheets a semester. After that, each page is worth some amount (maybe five cents a sheet). Students would definitely be more conscious about what they actually need to print out and would use duplex printing more often. Apart from saving trees, one result I root for is that it might drive people out of humanities classes with lots of printout readings and send people to science classes with fewer printouts and more problem sets, maybe like MAE 328: Energy for a Greenhouse-Constrained World. At least after taking this course people will feel a little better about having free printing taken away from them.
So these are some solutions toward making Princeton more environmentally friendly, and they can go a long way and do more than expected. Though some of the reasoning is facetious, the suggestions are more serious. While the Office of Sustainability works on upgrading our buildings, there are definitely ways we can make Princeton greener. Ben Chen is a Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering major from Los Altos, Calif. He can be reached at bc@princeton.edu.
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