IU getting left behind in sustainability

I usually don’t go a day on campus without being unpleasantly surprised by an example of how IU fails to live up to its potential to be a frontrunner in sustainability.

From the lack of recycling bins outdoors, the reliance on corporate food vendors for dorm dining halls or that giant gray smokestack tucked away behind the Kelley School of Business, I’m always wondering what more we could be doing.

I have the feeling that our administrators are not wondering the same thing because IU lacks clear direction on sustainability.

IU’s leadership has failed to guide us and outline a plan as to how we’re going to compete with other universities in the 21st century with regards to sustainability.

Not only are universities leaving us behind on the global scale, universities in Indiana have begun to best us by taking giant leaps and bounds forward.

Purdue University was planning for the past year to install a new coal-powered boiler. Just when you thought Indiana couldn’t have any more coal plants, Purdue University wanted to build another one.

But after the heavy lobbying of student groups, Purdue canceled its plans to build the coal plant.

That’s not all; Purdue has approved plans to build a 60-turbine wind farm for research and clean energy generation.

Those 60 turbines will create enough energy to power 25,000 homes and will be a significant addition to northern Indiana’s renewable energy options.

Ball State University is replacing four of its coal-fired boilers with a geothermal system that will save the university $2 million a year and cut the total carbon emissions of the university in half.

There are no similar plans for clean energy generation at IU.

While clean energy is a very complicated issue, IU fails to address even the smaller, more easily addressed issues of sustainability on campus.

As the Indiana Daily Student recently said in an article about RecycleMania, a recycling competition among universities, “If the Old Oaken Bucket were a recycling bin, it would not be in IU’s possession.”

What I find so fascinating is not so much Purdue’s mediocre performance in the RecycleMania competition, but rather IU’s extremely terrible score.

Our most recent RecycleMania score is nearly 20 percent; Purdue University’s most recent score is nearly 40 percent.

Not only is our score currently half the level of Purdue’s, it is nearly 10 whole percentage points below the national average.

When a relatively liberal campus is 10 percentage points below the national average for recycling, this should be a huge red flag.

IU’s low score is not so much a cultural or awareness problem, it is a structural problem.

As I mentioned, there are no outdoor recycling bins on campus. Students hear rumors that not all of the material tossed in the recycling bins on campus is even recycled. And while the dining halls have separate bins for waste, the process is lackadaisically enforced and minimally encouraged.

The only thing worse than not being able to recycle at all is for recycling to be the most difficult choice to make.

Our administrators should be making recycling a lot easier for students, and our student groups should be holding their feet to the fire.

In not being aggressive in making recycling easier for students, the IU administrators are holding IU back.

To be ranked 154th in any contest or metric is not something to be proud of, and it certainly isn’t something you’d tell prospective freshmen.

Yet there we are, ranked 154th in RecycleMania’s recycling contest.

IU’s leadership seems content to let IU become the most unsustainable university in the country.

I haven’t heard anyone seriously argue that we’re striving to become the most sustainable.

By endorsing the status quo, IU’s leadership is failing students by allowing the University to be left behind.

IU needs a comprehensive, University-wide sustainability plan.

IU needs to get serious and take up the cause of sustainability; our competitiveness and the environment depend on it.


E-mail: cdbabcoc@indiana.edu