Student Organizations

It’s no secret that waste is a big problem in some areas of the UW Greek Community, as well as other areas north of campus. This problem turns from big to BIG in the month before school starts (late August and early September) and the month after school ends (June). Students are on the move, transitioning between houses, apartments, dorms, etc. and in the process a lot of waste gets left behind or abandoned on the street as somebody else’s problem.

Dozens of UW students have traveled over the last few years to La Vega del Volcan, a remote village high in the mountains of Guatemala. The students listened to community members discuss some of the problems facing the village, and worked to help develop sustainable solutions.

Since January 2014, UW Engineers Without Borders (EWB) has been working on completing a multi-purpose community center in the area. The UW team is traveling back this upcoming winter break to finish building the outdoor superstructure. 

I was surrounded by a row of fields covered with a variety of crops, ready to learn what the UW Farm was up to this summer. Ellie Garcia handed me a tiny plum, one of the many fruits available at the farm, before detailing her experiences working there.

UW Environmental Studies majors gathered in Alder Hall last week to present their capstone projects, which ranged from in-depth looks at millennials’ involvement in environmental advocacy to research on improving our connectedness with nature.

“I’m always impressed by students,” said capstone instructor Sean McDonald. “They apply their environmental degree to the professional world.”

At 15 feet tall, the new hoop house for the Society for Ecological Restoration's UW Chapter (SER-UW) serves as a reminder of all the hard work 50 student volunteers put in over the course of six days.

Working eight to ten hour shifts, students from UW’s Construction Management department, Sigma Lambda Chi and volunteers from SER-UW set out to construct a 30 foot by 48 foot hoop house at the Center for Urban Horticulture. Now, the student run native plant nursery has room for about 5,000 plants in the hoop house.

The student group UW EcoReps works with the Greek community at UW to promote sustainability. EcoReps has created a Green Greek representative program to bring students from houses across the Greek community together to find opportunities in houses, on campus and beyond. Check out this video for more information on UW's Green Greek representatives:

Two sustainability-focused groups at the University of Washington, UW-Solar and the Green Greek Representative Program, are collaborating on a project that has sunny prospects and dazzling potential. Essentially, the two groups will be working together to determine opportunities for solar power in the UW Greek Community.

UW Earth Club president Aaron Tam introduced the club's "Tap That" campaign during the Earth Day celebration, a project that is working to reduce the use of plastic water bottles on campus. Tam is a currently a senior at the University of Washington studying Environmental Science: Wildlife Conservation and Political Science. He's passionate about environmental and socioeconomic justice, and is proud to have contributed greatly to climate action in Washington and campus sustainability efforts.

Project Tap That is a student campaign to educate UW students about the harmful effects of plastic bottles and promote the use of reusable bottles with tap water.

They'll be kicking off their education and outreach campaign during the Earth Day celebrations on Red Square. Stop by the UW Earth Club or UW Sustainability tables to learn about the benefits of using a reusable water bottle instead of buying bottled water, and you might have a chance to pick up a Tap That reusable water bottle of your own!

For the second year in a row, University of Washington's Seattle campus came in first among its Pac-12 competitors in overall waste reduction during RecycleMania, a national collegiate waste diversion tournament. With an overall reduction rate of 55%, the University ranked number 25 on a list of 207 competing institutions.