Sustainability at Oberlin

I'm Katia Chapin from Journalism Basics. It's the start of a new semester and a
transition period for sustainability programs at Oberlin College. The college's
Sustainable Infrastructure Program, which will convert buildings throughout
campus to geothermal heating to help meet the institution's goal of becoming
carbon neutral by 2025, is entering its third and final phase. The program has
changed the face of the campus, limiting walkable areas and mandating the
removal of dozens of trees near dorms and offices. Meanwhile, recycling bins
around campus remain covered with placards that read recycling coming Spring
2023, and Dascomb and Barrows Halls have kicked off new composting
programs. In the midst of so many changing policies, it's unclear how the
college is coordinating sustainability efforts, or where students stand in all of
this. So I went to Azariah's Cafe with Chloe Ko, Shaye Frenkel, and Katherine
Doane from Journalism Basics to hear students' ideas. We asked students what
their thoughts were on sustainability practices at Oberlin as of now, and what
they thought could be done differently. If you hear some piano playing in the
background, that's because there's a piano in Azariah's.
What are your thoughts on sustainability practices in Oberlin right now?
My name is Elyssa Torrence and I'm [00:01:00] a first year. I'm not actually, I
don't actually know that much about the sustainability policies. I think I've seen
a lot of signs that people are trying to like, change them or make them better,
but I haven't seen much other than that. We throw out a lot of trash every day,
so maybe if we try to tone that back a bit then that'd be better.
My name's Lea Crowley, I'm a first year. I just think it's interesting. I remember
coming back to school and they got away with the recycling for the spring
semester, and then a week later in my dorm, I live in Dascomb, they started a
compost and it just seemed like kind of hypocritical to get rid of one, like, really
key factor of sustainability to start something else. I just see like there's a lot
more buildup of trash recently, maybe just because of the semester has started,
but at the same time it seems more than normal.
My name is Z Fluger and I'm a first year. A lot of it sort of intrinsically feels
pretty performative just given the fact that, it feels very strange to me that you
can dump that much money at [00:02:00] an idea of like carbon neutrality, but
then also just not have recycling. It makes the whole thing feel a little bit
disingenuous to me. It is not something I actually think about all that often. But
every time I see the like, weird, like, carbon neutral by whenever things I just
kind of go, ugh. And I don't really feel any kind of genuine anything. It's really
cool the idea of carbon, going carbon neutral, but I'm confused why that's the
priority instead of something like recycling, which just feels like a more normal

baseline thing so I think I'm just confused as to why they do the things that they
do.
Yeah, sure.
It seems clear that many students are concerned about recycling in dorms and
classrooms. Recycling at the college was originally paused in March of 2020
when the City of Oberlin provided recycling collection for campus buildings
and halted operations due to public health concerns.[00:03:00] When recycling
resumed in November of that year, the city provided services on an opt-in basis
and the college chose not to opt-in. Contamination of recycling was and still is a
big concern for the sustainability office, who reported increasing fees from
recycling plants for contaminated waste earlier this month. The college is
currently contracted with a private recycling company, but it's unclear when the
blue bins will be back in commission.
Hi, I'm Ethan Rosen. As of now, they're pretty mid. They're supposed to have
recycling in a lot of buildings, but they kind of like never bring it in. They did a
decent job of explaining the compost, so that, that was good. Overall, you know,
it seems to be treated more as a hedge fund masquerading as an educational
institution. So I don't know how much motivation there is to actually go green
besides like optics for the board. There's one building right now that's silver
leed certified, which is Kahn I think they could do a lot more to [00:04:00]
install maybe some renewable energy, solar panels, limit water use in some
way, help out the dining halls more, maybe make some sort of effort to reduce
waste in a good way. I mean, I don't know how high individual footprint is. I'd
have to see.
Hello, my name is Beck Robertson. There's like no recycling bins. And I don't
like that because I always have a lot of papers that I want to get rid of. They
kind of got a lot going on with the sustainability. They got the silly lights in our
dorms, but they're like, oh, they're on break. We're not gonna fix 'em. We'll fix
'em later. They did not fix 'em. So there's sitting no blank. I feel like there's
ways you could definitely save energy by just being like, oh, try not to do
excess stuff, or, like, leave stuff on. And I, obviously, some stuff is kind of like
automated, I've noticed where, like, we walk in a room and a light turns on and I
think in some cases like that's good, there's lots of lights I presume. So, I mean,
if they turn off those lights, that's great. But yeah, I just want paper recycling.
That's ideal.
My name is Aahil Singh. I use he/him pronouns, and I'm a first year at Oberlin
College. I've noticed a few things about [00:05:00] Oberlin's sustainability

program, especially the orbs, and I think they're a good way of letting people
aware of their carbon footprint. But I don't think their policy, if there is a very
holistic one, is publicized as much as it should be, especially if they want to
truly make students aware. So something like the recycling bins. I, I'm a first
year, so first semester in campus I didn't see them being used the way that they
should have been, some bins used to have the little manual on top that told you
what goes in which bin, but most of them didn't. Just informing students about
the pros of waste segregation and t he small part that they can play in it, and the
impact that can have, could, could do a lot in the long run.
All right. Thank you for your time and have a nice day. Thank you. Students
overall seem to feel that they were not as informed as they would like to be
about sustainability at Oberlin. No one that we spoke to mentioned the
Sustainable Infrastructure Plan, or SIP, [00:06:00] by name. We spoke to
several students who were hesitant to be interviewed because they didn't think
they knew enough, which came as a surprise because Oberlin is known for
being green. It was one of the first colleges in the country to officially commit
to carbon neutrality. The problem, it seems, lies with communications. The
sustainability office recently said in a statement to the Oberlin Review that they
are working on a number of programs to reduce waste generation, but the waste
management page of the office's website hasn't been updated since 2021.
Insufficient communication will be a significant problem for the Office of
Sustainability because the college's climate action plan, aside from outlining
changes in infrastructure and technology, assumes that at least 10% of carbon
emission reductions will come from changes in student behavior. To learn more

about [00:07:00] sustainability at the college, visit oberlin.edu/environmental-
sustainability.

Today I'm here with a unnamed pianist and he would like to answer in a unique
way. So what are your thoughts on the sustainability practices in Oberlin right
now? Now, if it were up to you, what changes would you like to see in Oberlin?