Nurture Nature

Published: Friday, January 29, 1999

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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