Tufts has made a considerable effort to enhance its environmental policies in recent years. From installing energy-efficient technology like occupancy sensors for lights in buildings and testing out the controversial trayless initiative, the administration and student body have firmly demonstrated their commitment to "going green." Environmental sustainability was even the theme of this year's Parents Weekend.
Tufts' effort to be more green is slowly extending into the university's paper usage. The Offices of Sustainability, Purchasing and Publication sponsor a Tufts Prints Green initiative that includes measures to reduce paper use, such as using recycled paper to produce all university magazines, printing Tufts envelopes and stationary on 30 percent post-consumer waste products, and providing assistance on environmentally friendly paper solutions to those who seek it.
Considering the vast amount of paper used annually by the university, more needs to be done to address issues of paper usage on campus than just Tufts Prints Green. According to the Office of Sustainability, the Medford/Somerville campus alone used 221,844 pounds of paper in 2008, the equivalent of three football fields of forest. These numbers increase even further when the paper purchased and used independently by students, professors, staff and campus organizations for university-related activities is taken into account.
Tufts' large paper footprint has numerous environmental implications. Forest space helps combat global warming through the absorption of carbon dioxide and by preventing soil erosion. If deforestation continues to increase, these and numerous other environmental benefits of open forest space will be lost; according to a 2007 report from the United States Forest Service, if current deforestation rates do not change, 23 million acres of trees are projected to be lost over the next 40 years in the United States alone. Furthermore, the university could save a large amount of money by purchasing less paper, which is an important consideration at a time when the economy is struggling.
Fortunately, a group of students in the Experimental College class Environmental Action: Shifting from Saying to Doing, under the guidance of Tina Woolston, an instructor for the course and the project coordinator of the Office of Sustainability, is working toward the change that Tufts needs to reduce its paper footprint. The students are encouraging the university's libraries to switch their default setting on printers and copiers to double-sided, as is already the case with Tufts' office printers and copiers. The members of the class have already successfully convinced the Community Health and Environmental Studies Departments to participate in a trial program that allows assignments to be submitted online and instuctors to print a minimal amount of handouts, and have lobbied other professors to do the same. These efforts are particularly important, as handouts and essays are a major source of waste — large classes, long and frequent assignments and multiple drafts means that a single course can generate an enormous amount of paper that is disposed of as soon as the course is through.
The Daily applauds the students of the Environmental Action course for not only recognizing a problem on campus, but carrying through with their ideas. If the university is truly committed to going green, it needs to recognize that addressing the damage caused by paper waste is a central part of that goal. Implementing more programs for decreasing paper usage is crucial to the university's wider endeavor toward achieving sustainability.
