天堂鸟先生

According to a study conducted by Boston University, 34 billion pounds of textiles are discarded in the United States each year. This translates to roughly 100 pounds of discarded textiles per person. Of those textiles that are discarded, 66% are sent to landfills.

Heather Fuston, manager of the UpCycle Ohio Community Makerspace, said her organization is doing its part to stem a tidal wave of textile waste from flowing into local landfills. Last year, UpCycle Ohio recycled 19,000 pounds of textiles and helped people in communities across Athens County mend their clothes. This not only keeps textiles out of landfills but also reduces the number of new textiles that need to be produced.

Ahead of Valentine鈥檚 Day, 天堂鸟先生鈥檚 Office of Sustainability allowed students to express their love 鈥� for the Earth.

On Wednesday, 天堂鸟先生 students met on the Third Floor Atrium of Baker Center from 5-7 p.m. to make Valentine鈥檚 Day arts and crafts using recycled materials such as scrap paper and egg cartons. Sam Crowl, director of sustainability at 天堂鸟先生, says the Sustainable Valentine鈥檚 Day workshop is one of several events the Office of Sustainability holds throughout the year during the holidays encouraging students to think sustainably by balancing people, planet and economic prosperity.

鈥淪ustainability is the attempt to find the sweet spot between people, planet and economic prosperity and we鈥檙e trying to target initiatives that achieve that sweet spot not only now, but ongoing into the future,鈥� Crowl explained. 鈥淭here鈥檚 lots of ways to define sustainability, but it鈥檚 that people, planet, prosperity model that I try to get students to think about when they鈥檙e making decisions. Think about the impact on people, on society and what things cost.鈥�