Aramark Unionization

EcoAction is proud to announce its support for the unionization efforts of Aramark employees at Georgetown!

Last week, the Voice reported that Aramark employees at Georgetown—who work at Leo’s, as well as in Wolfington Hall, at Cosi and Starbucks, and at Dr. Mug—have announced to Aramark management that they plan to unionize. They plan to join Unite Here, a labor union of approximately 265,000 members in the U.S. and Canada that officially backed the efforts at Georgetown in July.

Power Shift 2011

The following post is by Ty Eldridge from Georgetown Energy Coalition.

When Energy Action Coalition first conceived of Power Shift 2007, it was one year out from the historic 2008 election. When we set out again in 2009 to draw young leaders from across the country to DC, it was in the immediate aftermath of President Obama’s election, and our mission was clear – to hold the President we had just elected accountable to the promises of a clean energy future.

As we embark on Power Shift 2011, the stakes are even higher, the
political backdrop more divisive than ever, and the urgency for bold leadership and vision more critical than ever before. Gone are the illusions that any particular political party or leader can solve the crisis before us. We now know that it will take unparalleled will from the people of this country to push our broken political system, which is ruled by dirty energy interests, to move past the short-sightedness of our leaders--a short-sightedness that leaves our generation in peril.

Recyclemania 2011

In case you didn’t catch the campus-wide email and the article on Georgetown’s website, Sunday marked the beginning of Recyclemania! Recyclemania is a national, ten-week competition to increase recycling among over colleges and universities. Schools like Georgetown report data about recycling rates and amounts of trash, and are ranked weekly according to four factors: the amount of recyclables per student, the total amount of recyclables, the amount of trash per student, and the school’s overall recycling rate.

The competition involves 630 schools, 6 million students, and over 1.5 million staff and faculty, in forty-nine states, Canada, and—of course—here in the District. Last year’s competition involved 607 schools, which collected over 84.5 million pounds of recyclables.

At Georgetown, Recyclemania is led by the Office of Sustainability, University Facilities, and the Office of Student Housing. Nationally, it is run by the College and University Recycling Council, with support from Keep America Beautiful and the EPA’s WasteWise Program, as well as The Coca-Cola Company, Alcoa, Waste Management, SCA and the American Forest & Paper Association.

Value [the] Meal Campaign

This Thursday, EcoAction will be teaming up with the Georgetown Garden Club to table for a Day of Action with Corporate Accountability International’s Value [the] Meal campaign. We’ll be asking people to sign postcards and call the McDonald’s CEO as part of the CAI’s Value [the] Meal campaign.










Corporate Accountability International is a non-profit, grass-roots organization based in Boston that has been conducting campaigns since the 1970s to challenge corporate abuse across the world. The Value [the] Meal Campaign was launched in 2009 in response to the gross misconduct of a fast food industry that collects massive profits by selling products that lead to obesity, heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, and many other health problems.

Clean-up at the Anacostia River

Monday, for Martin Luther King Day, I joined the Georgetown Conservation Corps on a clean-up at Pope Branch Park in Anacostia. It was organized by the Pope Branch Park Restoration Alliance in conjunction with several local and national organizations, and it was the Alliance’s fifth annual clean-up, in honor of Dr. King and the Alliance’s founder, Joseph Glover. We spent the morning picking up trash along the railroad tracks and residential streets near the park, which surrounds part of the Pope Branch Creek, a tributary of the Anacostia River.

The GCC, which is part of the Center for Social Justice, has an ongoing partnership with the Earth Conservation Corps, which is one of the groups working with the Pope Branch Park Restoration Alliance. According to Scott Breen (COL ’11), one of the group’s leaders, the GCC works on community service and environmental education events with members of the ECC. Their mission is the following: “To address issues of environmental justice by providing outreach and environmental education to communities and community organizations that lack sufficient resources.”

Food for Thought

Image source.

I don't plan on talking politics in my blog (I'll leave that to the other DC student blogs, thanks) but earlier today, President Obama signed the Food Safety Modernization Act, making it law.

Originally introduced in the Senate as S. 510 in March 2009, it was finally passed by the Senate in November 2010.  Amendments were presented and this act emerged in the House as H.R. 2751. People didn't expect it to go anywhere from there with the turnover of the House to Republicans and this act being put on the back burner.  Surprisingly, H.R. 2751 was passed in the House in June of 2009 and then passed in the Senate on December 19, 2010 (73 for, 25 against) - right before the turnover.

This legislation affects the FDA only, which regulates all foods except for meat and poultry, which is regulated by the Department of Agriculture.  This marks the first time that food regulation in the US has enjoyed major change since 1938.  It also marks the first time that the US has set food safety standards for imported foods.

Note: this post originally published on my personal blog.

The Cancun Agreements

Friday marked the last day of COP 16—the 16th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Following last year’s disastrous conference in Copenhagen, delegates from 193 countries met in Cancun with little fanfare and low expectations. The Cancun Agreements, drafted and released Saturday morning,are actually being met with general satisfaction.

On the positive side,the agreements are laudable: emissions reduction, limits to deforestation, financial support for countries affected by climate change. According to the Economic Times, global temperatures are to be restricted to a rise of 2 degrees C (3.6 F) over pre-industrial levels. Wealthy countries are to cut their emissions by 25-40% by 2020 over 1990 levels. In addition, as Grist describes in a surprisingly supportive article, the changes that developed and developing countries must make to their systems of monitoring and reporting on emissions. For example, developed countries will have to submit annual reports of their emissions, and developing countries will have to report every two years on their progress in cutting emissions.

COP16: Cancun

Last Monday, delegates started meeting in Cancun, Mexico, for COP16—the 16th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Every year, officials from participating countries meet to discuss environmental issues and, we hope, make agreements to remedy those issues. Last year, they met in Copenhagen at a disastrous summit that ended in the notorious Copenhagen Accord, a non-binding, three-page “statement of intention” that participating countries merely “took note of” rather than adopted officially.

This year, 194 nations are sending representatives to Cancun for negotiations, but expectations for any binding agreements are low. Heads of state and high-level leaders are generally not attending. The ultimate goal at Cancun is to come to an agreement about extension of or successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 treaty that mandated reductions of greenhouse-gas emissions, primarily for wealthy countries. Kyoto expires on December 31, 2012, and without an extension or a new treaty, the world will be left without any significant, binding climate-change agreements. The United States never ratified Kyoto.

An Evening with the Surfrider Foundation, A History of the DC Bag Tax from an Insider View

As a member of the greater DC community, I’m sure you’re aware of the plastic bag tax.  Since its implementation at the beginning of this calendar year, bag use has dropped from 22.5 million per month to 3 million per month and individual stores have estimated a 60 – 80% drop in use, while raising $1 million for cleanup efforts on the Anacostia River.

The Surfrider Foundation was one of the major organizations that lobbied for this tax, and so far it has been a wild success.  They supported this initiative based on an early study done by a few volunteers, who walked up and down the Anacostia River and recorded every piece of trash that they found.  They discovered that 47% of the trash consisted of plastic bags on land, while 20% of the trash was plastic bags in the river.  The Surfrider Foundation was founded by surfers who advocate for access to beaches and waves, but also for clean water, a human right that many people don’t have access to.

The bag tax has been a major success, seeing a 66% drop in the number of bags being cleaned up since last year, but not without critics.  It’s important to note that the issue was never about raising money, so it wasn’t a tax in the traditional sense, but it was more of a tax to reduce the number of plastic bags clogging up our rivers.  (Think of a “sin tax.”)  The tax ended up passing with less resistance than expected, especially when you consider the fact that more environmentally aware/progressive cities and states have failed...

Lightbulb Swap: Using CFLs

This week, EcoAction will be in Red Square for the EcoWeek light-bulb swap. Bring your incandescent light bulbs, and we’ll give you a compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL) for free!

The switch to CFLs is a quick, easy way to make a huge impact on the environment. According to Energy Star, CFLs use 75% less energy and last ten times longer than incandescent light bulbs. They also produce 75% less heat, which reduces the energy used for air-conditioning in buildings. CFLs will save you money, too. One CFL is a bit more expensive than one incandescent bulb, but because it lasts so much longer it can save you up to forty dollars over its lifetime. Imagine how much money could be saved by replacing all the bulbs in your home or workplace.