Tau Kappa Epsilon, 1-STEP and Ramapo Green worked together to host a campus cleanup on Friday, Sept. 20. It started at 10 a.m. with roughly 30 students meeting at the arch. The goal of the cleanup was to pick up litter from around campus, especially focusing on the residence halls, their tree lines and Kameron Pond.
After collecting the litter, students separated the recyclables from the garbage. The event ended around 1:30 p.m. with three cans of both recycling and garbage collected.
This was just the first of hopefully many cleanups to take place on campus. Ramapo Green, with the help of the Student Government Association’s (SGA) Secretary of Sustainability and several clubs and Greek organizations, is planning to set up cleanups every month throughout the entire academic year.
Peter Cammarano, a sustainability student, ran the cleanup.
“These clean-ups can help show someone how easy it is to rally people for a cause,” he said. “These cleanups show us how easy it is to go out of your way for the planet, and how good it makes you feel.”
This is just one step of a much larger initiative to make Ramapo a more sustainable campus. Professor of sustainability Ashwani Vasishth is promoting a student-managed composting program to potentially start in the Village. Ramapo also has a limited recycling pickup program at the Village and College Park Apartments (CPAs) that was started last semester to better organize what is being recycled and lessen waste.
As the trees on campus start to orange and wither, the college will continue getting greener.
pbortner@ramapo.edu
Featured photo by Peter Cammarano, Ramapo News
