Yes, we are hosting an “Earth Week” in order of Earth Day this year at Penn State!
Tomorrow (4/19), Earth Week will commence with an Earth Day expo from 11am-2pm in the HUB, where I will be hosting a table for Lion Surplus, the surplus and salvage warehouse of Penn State. We will be educating students and faculty on what Lion Surplus really is: all of the old equipment, furniture, and everything else Penn State gets rid of comes to our warehouse, where we re-sell it to the public. We will be talking about the importance of recycling and most importantly, re-using. People often forget that reusing or upcycling items is more sustainable than recycling, and the item can find a new home!
There are many speakers throughout the week, including a talk with Tom Szaky (Thursday 4/18 6pm 105 Forum), founder of TerraCycle, a company who’s mission is to “eliminate the idea of waste. We do this by creating national recycling systems for previously non-recyclable or hard-to-recycle waste.” Also, urban revitalization strategist Majora Carter will talk on Monday April 22 (6pm, 105 Forum) to wrap up the celebration.
Penn State’s Earth Day website has more information on the schedule across all branch campuses as well, and highlights include Spring Watershed Cleanup and Shaver’s Creek Earth Day Cleanup on Saturday April 20, and a talk by NPR science correspondent Christopher Joyce (talk titled “Scientists and Journalists: Codependents in the Age of Disappearing Media”).
There will also be a viewing of the documentary “Tapped”, which I have been dying to see! It is an exposee of the unregulated bottled water industry, plastic production, and the communities that are negatively affected by the industry. Even though it is almost 5 years old now, the ideas still hold true for most of the bottled water industry. I will have to write a blog post about my feelings on this, and I’m surprised that I haven’t yet! Check out the trailer below:
Lastly, Penn State Professor and climate scientist Richard Alley presented a talk titled “Rising Seas, Warming Planet” last week, and it will air on C-Net this weekend on channel 98 (Comcast, in State College). For more information on this, click here.
I hope that these events are well attended this week. Check back here for my summaries of various talks and an overview of the week!
Abbey Dufoe 