DCUSU and the Sustainable Living society are promoting Green Week on campus this week.
Events such as hosting bike clinics, swap shops, and zero waste cooking workshops will be held throughout the week.
“DCU is set to be a sustainable university by 2020,” SU presidential candidate Adam Healy stated.
Nubar are taking steps towards sustainable living. According to the manager, Dave Keaveny who said: “We’re doing it tonight for Green Week, but I’m waiting for the suppliers to come back to me to change it altogether because DCU is plastic free.”
“All our takeaway containers, coffee cups, straws. Everything is compostable except the plastic cups, but that’s changing.” he continued.
When asked is DCU doing enough, second year student, Brendan Fernando Kelly Palenque said: “While it’s obviously good and important that people discuss climate change, there needs to be more than that. And it also needs to go beyond getting people to make individual decisions to stop climate change.”
“We should be placing more pressure on the government and big business to stop climate change. Granted, who knows if it’s even possible to stop climate change in a capitalist system,” he added.
Sorcha Ní Chonghaile, who is a member of the Sustainable Living society committee thinks sustainable development goals should be a part of the curriculum in DCU.
“It already is for the B.Ed. programme, so primary school teachers are already getting it. It isn’t that difficult, so they can roll that out to a wider level. It’s really applicable to everyone and it covers everything,” said Ní Chonghaile.
“We’ve seen on campus there’s a reduction in usage of disposable cups because last year we passed that referendum over the line which helps a lot as there’s less availability of plastic, and also the community spirit in DCU is strong. They have a good level of participation to make change.” she added.
Trinity and UCD are also partaking in this significant week. Ní Chonghaile thinks DCU are doing enough in comparison to them.
“Some people would disagree but this is such a busy campus and if we did anymore we wouldn’t get the turnouts. The compostable cups night tonight is a big enough event in itself, that it’s not going to draw away from other events. This week allows students to attend less events but in more numbers,” she said.
Amy Donohoe
Image credit: Bullfrogpower.com
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