What exactly is an Eco-Rep, you ask? Is it a graphic tee that allows you to represent your town's local ecology? A traits list that expresses your environmental reputation (loves trees, doesn't always turn off the lights when leaving a room, avoids buying pre-packaged foods)? Better. Eco-Reps is a program for those of you interested in how human-induced changes to the environment affect modern society, for those of you who want to expand your environmental knowledge and enforce change.
Tufts Eco-Reps is the first group of its kind. Created by Anja Kollmuss, a current staff scientist at the Stockholm Environment Institute at Tufts, the program has been emulated by schools across the country. When I did Eco-Reps during my freshman year, the program was organized as a bi-weekly meeting with Kollmuss that included about ten undergraduates, mostly freshmen and sophomores. We discussed readings that were assigned from an Eco-Reps manual — with units such as Recycling, Climate Change, Food and Water — and shared answers and experiences from our Project Sheets, designed to provoke thought about the readings and to encourage us to follow up with real-life activities. For example, one task might include meeting with your resident assistant to discuss trash and recycling bins, talking to a custodian about his experiences with contaminated recycling, or signing up for Grist Magazine's daily environmental e-mail update. Ongoing projects included writing op-eds for the Daily about an environmental issue of your choice and planning individual, end-of-the-semester dorm events intended to initiate discussion and spark action, with smaller events and chances to volunteer throughout the year.
After an Eco-Rep hiatus during 2007 and 2008, sophomore and Tisch Scholar Alexandra Beretta has been working to research and evaluate the best way to revamp Eco-Reps for a momentous return. As part of this project, Office of Sustainability Project Coordinator Tina Woolston, second-year graduate student in urban and environmental planning and policy Dallase Scott, and Beretta worked with students from the Experimental College (Ex-College) class Environmental Action: Shifting from Saying to Doing to hold an Eco-Representative Symposium on Nov. 7. The Tufts Institute of the Environment (TIE) provided financial support for the event, which was attended by over 70 people interested in environmental action from 15 schools, including Keene State College, University of Vermont, and Brandeis, Harvard and Yale universities. Speakers from different colleges, mostly students and a few sustainability office employees, gave talks on topics such as "Reaching Faculty and Staff through Eco-Reps," "Working with Food and Dining Services" and "Maintaining Engagement throughout the Year."
This sharing of ideas and approaches allowed everyone present to see the differences and similarities between Eco-Rep programs at various schools. Discussions of what has and hasn't worked, what's been difficult and what needs more thought fostered an environment of mutual interest and problem-solving toward a common — yet unique to each school — goal. It was extremely informative, friendly and casual, and a great place to meet interesting people; overall, it was a good time. (Did I mention that there was delicious local and vegetarian food?)
At the symposium, Scott spoke about the Ex-College class she is currently co-teaching with Woolston. Students from the class were present and able to give their informed input about the challenges of creating action in their own lives and at Tufts. If you want to learn more about the class, just find a student walking around with a bag of trash this week; class members are practicing their own awareness activity related to individual waste production.
Interesting and specific ideas I'd never considered before were brought to discussion at the symposium — for instance, dedicating a team of Eco-Reps to help lab researchers reduce their energy-use, thereby substantially lowering costs, with competitions aimed to lower and close fume hoods as often as possible. Or holding dining-hall dish drives to return dishware and save resources, primarily money and consequentially plastic, while helping employees on campus. (We all love our Dewick-MacPhie collectibles, but hand-me-downs from relatives and cheap yard sale finds can be just as elegant.) There's no doubt in my mind that the new Eco-Rep program will be revamped to include such great ideas and more. If you have ideas, want to get involved or are interested in learning about and contributing to environmental activity at Tufts, Eco-Reps in the program for you.
So how can you represent yourself, your community and your world? Help change the way we think about each of these seemingly distinct categories by reminding ourselves of their inherent connectedness and therefore powerful affects on each other. But don't just remember it; Eco-Rep or not, let this knowledge determine who you are and therefore how you act.
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Lucy McKeon is a senior majoring in English. She currently works for Tufts Recycles. For more information about Tufts Eco-Rep program visit http://sustainability.tufts.edu/?pid=106 or e-mail Alexandra.Beretta@tufts.edu.
