The past 4 weeks in wicked problems has really opened my eyes to how much I contribute to the wickedness. As hard as I try to do my part to recycle and reduce waste, I find myself buying non reusable plastic bottles or leaving my lights on in my room all day long. On the other side of that, wicked problems has also made me start recycling in the first place. I, as one single person, can’t stop global warming or air pollution but I can do my small part to try and help. My dad used to tell me that “little things turn into big things”, he was talking about making mistakes during my softball games but either way it is a powerful saying. If everyone in the United states would use a reusable bottle instead of a plastic one we could reduce waste by so much, and that’s such a small act for one person. That’s one thing that going to the campus sustainability office really showed me.
OSU is a big campus with a lot of students and the fact that we have trash bins around for the option to recycle is awesome. We are playing our little parts without realizing it! The presentation at the sustainability office also taught me that all of our buses run on compressed natural gas as well as, seventy percent of campus energy is powered by wind power, and the Colvin Recreation Center is powered by a ground source heat pump. Just imagine if every college campus in the U.S. was as sustainable as us! If we already can be sustainable just by going about our day on campus, what if we went out of our way to try and protect our planet.