Friday, January 29, 1999
Nurture Nature
ACTIVISM: The environment calls out for help, and these activist
student groups
are there to respond
By H. Jayne Ahn
Daily Bruin Contributor
Some students may not think twice about the piles of used
papers, soda cans and plastic utensils that inundate campus daily,
but others refuse to sit around and watch the world around them be
slowly destroyed.
Currently, the UCLA chapter of California Public Interest
Research Group (CALPIRG) and the Environmental Coalition spearhead
student environmental activism on campus.
Last Tuesday, the national lobbying office for environmental
protection praised student involvement in helping to preserve the
environment.
"Students’ e-mails, phone calls, protests in front of corporate
offices and gas stations are really starting to work. – you guys
have done a great job," said Athan Manuel, the director of Arctic
Wilderness Campaign.
Under this campaign, coalitions of students and environmental
advocates across the country are generating grassroots pressure,
attracting the media, and endorsing shareholders’ resolutions at
oil and gas companies.
"Students know that we are inheriting the Earth and that our
kids are going to be around, and we have to keep things running,"
said Marc Nickel, the chapter chairman of CALPIRG.
"But sometimes it’s hard for them to volunteer the time.
Pledging is the easiest way to get involved," added the first-year
physics student.
CALPIRG, along with help from the UC regents, tries to get at
least 15 percent of the student body to pledge $5 per quarter to
support their efforts.
The student environmental group is also participating in a
campaign to urge state legislators to overhaul the existing Clean
Water Bill.
"The Clean Water laws are pretty good. But the problem with them
is that nobody’s enforcing them," Nickel said.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, there were
9,000 violations of the laws over the past seven years in L.A.
area, but only 14 violators were fined.
"For me, activism is about recognizing that society’s got
problems and doing something about it," said Jan Lee, a program
staffer at CALPIRG.
"We advocate very specific solutions in addition to raising
consciousness about various environmental issues," Lee said.
The Clean Water Now campaign calls for adding new stipulations
to the Clean Water bill for better enforcement and prevention of
pollution.
The Environment Coalition has a slightly different angle to
working for the environment – taking it to a more political
level.
A handful of graduate and undergraduate students work closely to
address issues related to both environmental and human rights, what
the group believes are "a part of social justice."
"The bottom line is the lack of control of people over their own
situation," said Kevin Rudiger, a coalition member and first-year
graduate student in urban planning. "A lot of times, it comes down
to building movements for corporate accountability and greater
meaningful democracy."
In the past, the group has produced a documentary on toxic
pollution and disproportionate impacts on low income and minority
communities in Los Angeles.
Recently, the group worked to urge the L.A. City Council to
adopt a Free Burma ordinance that denounces Unocal Corporation and
other corporations that do business with the country of Myanmar,
which is ruled by a military regime charged with massive human
rights abuses.
The group’s prolonged outreach to the community and
coalition-building with labor unions, religious leaders and human
rights groups came to fruition last month, when the city council
unanimously passed the Free Burma law.
The Environmental Coalition and Graduate Students Association
publish a newsletter, "Shades of Green," to address various
environmental and political issues. About 1,000 copies of the
newsletter are circulated to classes, coffee shops around campus
and in Westwood and also to local student groups working on
environmental issues.
Currently, the group is working to stop the Multilateral
Agreement on Investment, a worldwide trade agreement being
negotiated by proponents of free trade.
"The Multilateral Agreement on Investment takes down trade
restrictions and gives corporations more rights both in developed
countries and third-world countries to further exploit natural
resources," Rudiger said.
An issue that concerns both CALPIRG and Environmental Coalition
is recycling at UCLA, or rather, the lack of it.
In the first half of 1998, UCLA recycled 990 tons – 12 percent
of its total waste stream. Although 990 tons is much more than
those of most UC campuses, most campuses recycle a higher
percentage of their waste, CALPIRG officials said.
Just recently, CALPIRG, Environmental Coalition, and the
undergraduate external vice president’s office formed a recycling
committee and are still recruiting people to become involved.
The committee, which is made up of representatives from the
three organizations, plans to set up a meeting with the Associated
Students of UCLA food services and the vendors to ask them to help
set up recycling bins in the eating areas.
Some students advocate placing separate bins for different
commodities of waste around campus.
"I think (the facilities) can do much more in recycling if they
separated the bins for papers and other commodities such as
aluminum cans and plastics," said Ellie Cijvat, a graduate student
in electrical engineering and member of the Environmental
Coalition.
Facilities management, however, claims that recycling aluminum
cans is not necessary.
"Aluminum cans make up less than 1 percent of our waste stream.
Furthermore, many of the cans are removed from our campus by all
sorts of visitors and entrepreneurs," said Jack Powazek, the
assistant vice chancellor of facilities management.
"Our biggest waste stream has been paper. We concentrate a lot
of energy and whatever funds we have on recycling paper," he
added.
To capture more paper for recycling, facilities management plans
to replace the "newspaper only" sign with "mixed paper" on the
newspaper bins around campus in the next few months.
Facilities also plans to place paper-recycling bins in some
classrooms and libraries.
Facilities claims a lack of comprehensive recycling program by
the administration. Some brought up that ASUCLA and On-Campus
Housing (both of which manage wastes separately from the facilities
management) also neglect making recycling a priority. They point
out that the majority of waste from both organizations is
incinerated instead of recycled.
A few weeks ago, facilities management began a pilot recycling
program in Rieber Hall. Each floor of the residential hall now has
two separate recycling bins: one for paper and the other for
aluminum, glass and plastic.
Nevertheless, all other On-Campus Housing facilities are still
without a recycling program, except Saxon Suites, which has been
running its own recycling program since last quarter.
"Everyone wants to recycle. If it’s accessible, people are going
to recycle," said Amal Islam, the Saxon residential association
president.
The second-year neuroscience student mentioned that all they had
to do was to "put up some publicity" and "put in the recycling
bins."
"The residents have been really good about depositing their
trash in the appropriate bins," Islam said.
"It’s not even taking any extra effort on our part," Islam said.
"Everybody’s doing their part so it’s not like all the weight is on
one person or a group of people."
The facilities management has a Recycling Program web site that
provides statistics and latest facts on recycling at UCLA. Go to:
http://www.fm.ucla.edu/fm/html/sp_prg/sp_prg.htmlBAHMAN
FARAHDEL/Daily Bruin
Thierry Ngoufan is the director of the UCLA Environmental
Coalition.
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