The students and faculty want a greener campus but will their vision be funded by administration during this economic downturn.

Everyone has heard about global warming and pollution, students and teachers should collaborate about making the campus more environmentally friendly.

The campus needs to focus on recycling efforts, designated spaces for glass, plastic, aluminum, and paper are a necessity .Although lack of resources has strained recycling efforts; students still seem motivated to improve campus efficiency.

“Recycling doesn’t have to be a costly activity”, librarian Ed Martinez said.”As friends of the earth we need to protect our earth by recycling.”

Martinez was in charge of the recycling task force on campus before it was disbanded for unknown reasons. Improved strategies for recycling need to be implemented; most of the recycling of plastic, aluminum, and glass is done by the homeless who wander on to campus to pick through the trash for extra cash.

“We need more recycling bins on campus that are visible to the public” 28-year old Art major Henry James said. “We need more student awareness of how to make the campus more eco-friendly.

By thinking green we are going to live longer, cleaner, and better. Recycling is just one way we can make our school a little greener.

“We are saving the planet by recycling”, 19-year old environmental club member Anna Goolsby said. “We are being considerate of the earth therefore we will live healthier and longer.”

Ride-sharing among students and faculty would decrease the amount of cars on campus. This would possibly improve air quality and make the campus more desirable for students and visitors.

“I think that the average student is uninformed about the environment”, Jones said. That same student doesn’t understand how these issues affect them”. “I don’t think that we are driving the point hard enough to these students.” We can’t destroy our environment”.

Students and faculty have also mentioned that we can minimize waste on campus. The waste of paper can be decreased considerably, frequent posting of paper flyers on campus walls and doors are usually never read by students.

“There are other ways to notify students besides paper flyers”, Martinez said. “We can start sending more messages electronically to eliminate a lot of the paper waste.”

We have made eco-friendly strides on our campus but we have not reached the plateau that other colleges have.

East Los Angeles College is generating 45 percent of the college’s energy from solar panels that are placed in the parking lot. If funding was available on our campus would it be feasible for El Camino to install them?

“It’s possible that we could power a building by solar panels, if the funding was available .Jones said. “Anything that decreases are carbon footprints perhaps will make the environment around us cleaner.

Solar Panels are an eco-friendly investment that possibly could pay itself off in several years. Not to mention the positive environmental aspects of the solar panels.

“It seems like money is more important than green”, Martinez said. “We need to stop and take a look at our resources, it’s important that we are conscious of our actions our future depends on it.”