Charlotte, N.C./April 22, 2023 – Aleena Oakley ’22 came from a family who always recycled, but it wasn’t until she took Principals of Sustainability at Johnson C. Smith University when she realized how passionate she was about it.
Now, Oakley serves as a Climate Core Fellow in the JCSU Center for Renewable Energy and Sustainability (CRES) and is working hard to educate students, faculty and staff about the importance of recycling.
“We are producing more plastics today than we are recycling. In fact, only about 9 percent of all plastics produced have been recycled,” said Oakley. “I want to start educating my own community now so we can all work together to make a bigger difference on our planet.”
Today is Earth Day, and the national theme is “Invest in Our Planet.”
Oakley is working alongside students in the Principals of Sustainability class and other members of the CRES team to invest in the planet by managing recycling bins set up around campus. She hopes the initiative will help students, faculty and staff change their mindset on recycling.
According to Oakley, more than 50 percent of the 380 million tons of plastic produced each year are never recycled. These tend to be single-use plastic items like cutlery, straws and plastic cups. She said only 9 percent of all plastics that have been produced will ever be recycled.
These staggering statics have also revealed that plastic pollution is impacting more than just our planet.
Rashawna Huntley ’23 is currently working on a water sampling project that focuses on the correlation between land use and water quality as a part of her research at JCSU.
Students in the sustainability program at JCSU are a part of the South Carolina Sea Grant Consortium, which was recently granted more than $2.6 million to catalyze the replacement of plastics with natural minerals in South Carolina and the Southeast United States. The award, given by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, aims to address water pollution, specifically plastic pollution in bodies of water in South Carolina.
“Water is the basis of life, and what happens on land will always end up in the water,” Huntley said, indicating that water pollution can cause harm to people and their ecosystems.”
“Plastics don’t just pollute and hurt our Earth, but we are now finding microplastics in our bloodstreams and in the bloodstreams of animals and we don’t yet know the long-term effects,” added Oakley.
Dr. Mark Dugo, director of CRES, said that plastic pollution is so overwhelming today that microplastics can be found in our atmosphere.
Oakley, Dugo and the CRES team have worked to implement a recycling program that supplies cardboard bins to each residence hall lobby, the Millennium Dining Hall, the Bull Pen and New Science Center.
Each Wednesday, Oakley and her team collects the weeks’ recycling. They bring it back to CRES where they sort the recyclables before hauling it all to the local recycling center.
Oakley suggests that students, faculty and staff sit their recycling aside until it can be dropped of in one of the recycling bins. Materials placed into the bins should be clean and empty to avoid contamination.
Outside of the recycling program itself, Oakley said CRES is focusing on educating campus with information on what can and cannot be recycled in Mecklenburg County. A JCSU Recycling Guide was produced by CRES, and is available in common areas around campus.
“This is a teaching and learning opportunity the whole campus community can learn from,” said Oakley.
Students on the team will continue to learn about sustainability when they take a trip to New York for the UNITE 2030, a 6-day innovation lab to spark entrepreneurial solutions to the United Nations’ sustainable development goals. The trip will take place in mid-September 2023.
CRES is located on the second floor of New Science Center. For more information on the recycling program, visit the center during normal business hours.
