![\"\"](\"http:\/\/hunterword.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/pubhuntersustain-300x285.jpg\")
<\/a>Picture from Hunter Sustainability Website.<\/p><\/div>\n
Truly Johnson, 20, treasurer, joined the club in her freshman year. After taking AP Environmental Science at the School of the Future, she became \u201cscared of the state of the world\u201d and enrolled in Hunter knowing she wanted to join a campus organization dedicated to sustainability, she said.<\/p>\n
Every semester, the club hosts a clothing swap and T-shirt printing event to prevent wastefulness. Students can either trade a shirt for a different style or bring in a garment and revamp it with an eco-themed logo or design.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can see the waste being diverted,\u201d said Johnson, who majors in computer science and minors in environmental studies. Americans produced 15.1 million tons of textile waste, 85 percent of which ended up in landfills, according to the according to the Environmental Protection Agency.<\/a>\u00a0 Over the past two years, the Sustainability Project has diverted over 300 pounds of clothes away from landfills, according to a description on the event\u2019s Facebook page.<\/a><\/p>\n Elizabeth Roginkin, 21, participated in the clothing swapathon her club hosted. After combing through her closet, she picked out a few garments she hardly ever wore and traded them in for new pieces. It became a way for her and other students to reexamine what they do and don\u2019t need in their daily lives, she said.<\/p>\n Making sustainability more tangible to Hunter\u2019s students is one of the club\u2019s main goals. \u201cWe try to involve the Hunter community as much as possible,\u201d said Roginikin, who majors in environmental studies and is pursuing a certificate in public policy through the Roosevelt House policy program. In addition to composting and recycling, the club hosts an event every month to engage fellow students. In time for Thanksgiving and for the third year in a row, the club hosted its Sustainable Thanksgiving, partnering again with the Undergraduate Student Government to convert food waste from its annual Thanksgiving dinner into composting.<\/p>\n Inside Room 305B. Picture by Olivia Pawlowski<\/p><\/div>\n Food waste from the celebration was driven to the Earth Matter composting center on Governor\u2019s Island, which \u201cseeks to reduce the organic waste misdirected into the garbage stream by encouraging neighbor participation and leadership in composting.\u201d according to information gathered from its official website<\/a>.<\/p>\n In high school, Mike Tejada, 21, club president, realized he \u201cwanted to be more carbon neutral\u201d and minimize his carbon footprint.<\/a> By his senior year of high school, he had adopted a vegetarian diet and now, as a senior in college, he has converted to veganism.<\/a> Sustainability, for him, is very much about what one eats, he said. Tejada, a Bronx native, buys food locally and has completely eliminated animal by-products from his diet. Eliminating animal agriculture is not only important to the Sustainability Project and Tejada himself, but also for another club where he is a member, Paths to Animal Liberation.<\/a><\/p>\n Paths to Animal Liberation, according to the description on its official Facebook page, strives to \u201ceducate people about the horrific implications of using and abusing animals for food, clothing, breeding, entertainment and research.\u201d It often partners with the Sustainability Project for campus events. Every year, during Earth Week in April, the Sustainability Project hosts a week-long event called Hunter Goes Green in which the main floor of Hunter\u2019s West building becomes an educational playground full of games, informative presentations, and giveaways centering around sustainability and environmentalism.<\/p>\n Paths to Animal Liberation often takes part in the event and holds a tabling, informing students about the benefits of veganism. Natalia Scollo, 23, who is graduating this semester with a major in political science and double minor in economics and human rights, believes a change needs to happen about how \u201cvegan is received and how animal activism is perceived,\u201d she said. \u201cAnimal rights aren\u2019t discussed in presidential elections \u2012 I want to see that changed,\u201d said Scollo.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n At the time this story was being developed, the Hunter Sustainability Project was making preparations for its last event of the semester, Sustainable Holiday on December 7. \u201cIt\u2019s really fun to bring arts and crafts into the sustainable side of things,\u201d said Brithney Malchan, 21, who is majoring in biochemistry and minoring in environmental studies. For its Sustainable Holiday event, members recycle old papers, magazines, and bottle caps to make bows, wrapping paper, and holiday magnets.<\/p>\n Throughout the years, the event has shown Malchan and Johnson their own knacks for arts and crafts. One year, Johnson made her mother a candle holder out of leaves and an old jam jar. With Christmas fast approaching, she has started to brainstorm what else she can recycle to make unique gifts for friends and family.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Olivia Pawlowski can be reached at olivia.pawlowski75@myhunter.cuny.edu<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Article by Olivia Pawlowski![\"\"](\"http:\/\/hunterword.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/pubAnimals-on-walls.jpg\")
<\/a>Where Did The 2016 Presidential Candidates Stand on Animal Rights & Welfare?<\/strong><\/a><\/h2>\n
\nRoom 305B can transport you to the depths of the Atlantic where blue whales dip in and out of the ocean; to Florida\u2019s coast where hammerhead sharks hug the shore; and all the way to Namibia where elephants and giraffes roam freely. Room 305B in Thomas Hunter Hall is the home of The Hunter Sustainability Project,<\/p>\n