HSU’s Waste Reduction and Resource Awareness Program offers services to students

By | Kelly Bessem

School can be a mental and financial struggle, but doing your part to reduce waste on campus doesn’t have to be.  Humboldt State’s student-run Waste Reduction and Resource Awareness Program, also known as WRRAP, has been in operation for almost 30 years.

The campus services they maintain are free to all students. These services include campus compost bins, water refill stations, zero waste supplies, events such as the clothing swap. Additionally, students can visit the Reuseable Office Supply Exchange House, where students can find free school supplies such as notebooks and writing utensils.

Environmental science major Crystal Singletari was glad to find out that the ROSE House was there to provide an option other than paying expensive prices for new school supplies. 

“The first two weeks of school I didn’t have enough binders to reuse and was super unorganized so I went to the bookstore, but they’re so expensive,” Singletari said.

Rangeland resources major Ishmael Guerrero believes helping to reduce waste is good, but it is often difficult to keep track of waste reduction programs on campus.

“I’m usually focused on school, work, or sports,” Guerrero said.

WRRAP is set up to direct students toward reducing waste on campus and in the rest of their lives in simple ways rather than having to figure it out alone. Isabel Sanchez, a business major and natural resources minor has been working for WRRAP for more than two years. Sanchez explained how WRRAP can make waste reduction easier for students to understand.

“It’s a network that allows for exchanges of waste reduction methods,” Sanchez said.

Need some encouragement to live a less wasteful campus lifestyle? According to a 2015 estimation, Humboldt State University students collectively dispose of 266,314 pounds of waste on campus each year. That’s about the mass of four humpback whales. Though HSU students always seem to strive for improvement, there is still a whale of a problem.

Check out WRRAP’s website at http://www.humboldt.edu/wrrap or email their student staff at wrrap@humboldt.edu. The program is there so that reducing waste doesn’t become another daunting school task on your checklist.