This week, NYU is all about the three Rs: reduce, reuse and recycle.
According to the NYU Sustainability website, the university uses enough electricity every year to power 18,000 American homes and enough paper to stack to the top of the Empire State Building twice. Its annual domestic water use may amount to a volume nearly half the size of the Central Park Reservoir.
Organizers of NYU Earth Week 2008 want more students to know more about their university's impact on the environment. In an 11-day stretch from April 19 to 28, students, administrators and faculty members promote the green movement both on campus and in the community through a series of events to raise awareness.
"Earth Week is a way to try to get people to think about huge issues that have to do with the environment," said Maggie Craig, cochair of Earth Week and copresident of Earth Matters. "We're building a community around change, so people can really think about the issues and discuss them here."
The kick-off event, Off the Grid 2008: Earth Week Kickoff Concert, took place this past Saturday and featured an outdoor music festival that ran apart from the electrical grid by using biodiesel energy. It featured the bands Mission of Burma, Revision, Amygdaloids and Tree Union.
Students and community members will also have the opportunity to participate in a number of other outdoor activities, including VIP Day 2008, in which volunteers will be painting railings and light posts and filling new planters with flowers in accessible areas of Washington Square Park. There will be talks on sustainability, solar energy and transportation alternatives.
Byron Cheung is deputy campus editor. E-mail him at bcheung@nyunews.com.
