New environmental club on campus

A new student organization has one message for the VCU community: reduce, reuse and recycle. Through diversity and teamwork, Green Unity’s coordinators hope to have an impact by producing a greener campus.

The organization encourages members to use their particular interests or goals to start sub-groups within the club and promote environmental ideas with their own projects.

“We want people in our club to bring the skills that they have,” said Amanda Schutt, an environmental studies major and one of the club’s coordinators. “That’s the unity idea.”

The group, which communicates primarily through Facebook, is considering organizing an October clean-up of the 1100 block of Grace Street-an area also known as “Hell Block,” based on a large student population and the trash they create.

“In the past, when we cleaned up Hell Block, there have been a lot of beer cans, bottles and cigarette butts,” said Will Isenberg, an environmental studies major and a club coordinator.

Green Unity wants to become more involved with service projects around VCU.

“We do want to keep (our projects) local. We want to have students see the changes they are making,” Schutt said.

The group places emphasis on its interest in gaining members from all areas of study.

“You don’t have to be an environmental studies major to be in this club,” Schutt said. “We asked everybody (in the club) what their major was and we had a lot of mass comm. students, some crafts students and (students) all over the spectrum as far as sciences.”

Steven Heinitz, VCU’s recycling coordinator, addressed Green Unity at a recent meeting where he discussed the lack of recycling bins on campus.

“President Trani finally signed the President’s Climate Commitment, (which is) a whole list of things the university has committed itself to doing; one of which is waste minimization,” Heinitz said.

According to Heinitz, VCU ordered 25 new recycling containers – all are made from 100 percent recycled plastic – to place throughout campus.

Within Green Unity there are three sub-groups: recycling, green eating and education. The organization is trying to expand or create more sub-groups based on members’ interests.

“We have one subgroup that’s forming based on education,” Isenberg said. “One of the members suggested that he wanted to go around to local schools and put on a presentation of environmentally sound ideas.”

Green Unity meets on Wednesdays at 5:30 p.m. in the library and on alternating Wednesdays at 9:30 p.m. in the University Student Commons.