Tiger Blue Goes Green, an annual event hosted by the University of Memphis to show students how they can help the environment and practice sustainability, came to the Student Activities Plaza on Tuesday.
Event representative Ling Hong said the fair’s goal is to get students to take responsibility for the environment no matter where they are.
“We see that many people need to have more solutions of being sustainable, not just in their professional lives but also in their personal lives,” Hong said. “We’re providing unique tips for being sustainable not just here on campus, but beyond on campus. This place could be at home.”
Amanda Fyer, recycling manager at Recycle Memphis, one of the companies at Tuesday’s event, said her company’s curbside recycling program allows citizens to get a grip on preserving the environment.
Recycle Memphis gives outs bins the size of garbage cans to Memphis residents for free. Aluminum and renewable materials, which can be made into new plastic bottles, chairs and toys, are supposed to fill the bins.
“Your materials go somewhere — it doesn’t disappear when you throw it away,” Fyer said. “It collects in landfills, and we’re trying to make sure we’re responsible for these materials that Memphis citizens use and use them responsibly.”
Susan Moresi, a representative from Sierra Club, a 100-year-old organization that focuses on humans respecting the world, said not recycling is causing less space on the planet.
“Everyone keeps piling stuff up and putting it in the ocean and acting like there’s plenty of room, but there’s really not plenty of room,” Moresi said.
Stine Moss, the Cooperwood Community Services coordinator and a representative for Keep Tennessee Beautiful, said getting trash out of the streets is an important health issue, as trash tends to fill up in the state’s streets.
“We have volunteers and workers who go out every week and pick up trash in our streets,” Moss said. “If it wasn’t for them, we would have trash up to our necks and would be sick.”
Students can also help the environment by finding clean ways to commute.
The U of M bike share program helps to keep not only its members but also the environment healthy. Art Johnson, the coordinator for the TIGUrS garden and Tiger Bike Share, said the school offers students, faculty and staff a better way to get around.
The bikes are rented for $35 per semester for anyone in the U of M community and bike maintenance is also available for personal bikes. Johnson said the bikes can help students save on gas money and cut their emissions.
“If you’re wanting to go to Kroger from campus, you can do so with no carbon footprint whatsoever,” Johnson said. “It’s good for your body. It’s good for your soul to know that you’re doing something to keep the mindset of sustainability.”
U of M’s bike share program isn’t going to be the only bike share program available to the Tiger community in the future.
Explore Bike Share is expanding to the U of M campus. Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) gave a $580,000 grant to the school to allow Explore docking stations to be installed, according to a U of M press release. There will be a total of 60 bicycles distributed throughout the U of M community by fall 2019.
Art Johnson, who runs the Tiger Bike program, an on-campus bike rental program, set up a booth on the importance of bicycling. The booth and program highlight bicycles as a sustainable environmentally-friendly form of transportation.
The Mid-South Electric Vehicle club had several electric vehicles on display. Unlike hybrid vehicles or gas-powered cars, EVs run solely on electric power.
Students and faculty set up several tables with information about being environmentally friendly for Tiger Blue Goes Green which supports ecologically-friendly sustainability. The organization sponsored the event which was free to all students and the public.
