earth day...being a "green" graduate student

As many of you have heard, with announcements of all kinds of activities all over Northwest Arkansas next week, Monday, April 22nd is Earth Day. In the spirit of Earth Day, I thought I would share some ways you too can be a "green" graduate student, and what you can do with old papers - that looked really promising based on the title, but ended up being completely useless, printed drafts of your dissertation/thesis/proposal, old user manuals that are hundreds of pages long, but now there's a new version...old bills, and all the other papers we accumulate as graduate students. 

For those papers you need to shred:

I recommend shredding all papers that have identifying information like old bills, copies of your resume/cv, or anything that you feel like purging out of your environment. So once they're shredded, what do you do with them?

• Recycle - you can always recycle them. White paper recycled at the University goes to a good place to be reborn as more white paper.
• Use as packing material - either put it in the box directly (if you really don't like someone) or you can put it in some old newspaper sleeves or other plastic bags first. It's great to cushion packages or fill empty space to keep things from moving around.
• Mulch - Shredded paper is a great mulch for your garden. I recommend a layer under a layer of more traditional mulch, but it helps suppress weed growth and keeps moisture in. Keep in mind that you want to only use shredded paper that is not printed with toxic inks...I usually use newspaper just to be on the safe side
• Cat litter - I know people who use shredded documents as cat litter. It's free and no one will want to try to steal your information from small bits of paper used by a cat for toilet paper
• For parties - shredded paper, especially the cross-cut kind, makes great confetti. Mix it up with a few pieces of colored paper to make it pretty
• Make your own paper - soak shredded paper in water, break it up into water and pulp, screen out the pulp, press out the water, let it dry and voila! recycled paper. 

For papers you don't need to shred:

• Paper airplane competitions - Get your fellow grad students together and let the competition begin. See how far you can get your paper airplane to go and do a bunch of research online on the best construction. (Go ahead and file this under "green procrastination.") The person who loses has to buy a case of Ramen Noodles for the lab. Recycle airplanes when finished.
• Gift wrapping/wrapping paper - I have a good friend who used drafts of her thesis to wrap her Christmas presents for her family...in case you were wondering what I've been working on for the past five years...
• More advanced origami - create cranes out of old documents to make peace with the previous draft of your proposal, the more red ink from your advisor, the prettier they look. Legend states that if someone makes 1000 cranes, their wish will come true. (Perhaps the opposite is true for graduate students, but you can send some paper and instructions to family members who share the dream of you graduating...) You can also make boxes and other origami creations to decorate your office. 
• Make pots for starting seeds - wrap a few pieces of paper around a toilet paper tube to create a small pot. Put seed starting soil in the pot and then plant your seeds. We do this with newspaper every year. 

Papers you don't want in your life:
 
The other option is always a bonfire (or just a burning party) with friends. (Once again be careful here...some inks could potentially be toxic...and we're talking about fire here.) This is also not the most earth friendly idea, but sometimes you need to release something back to the universe. Have everyone bring along a few documents that they no longer want creating negativity for them. Burning certain documents that I had saved helped me remove the reminder of something that didn't go well - or represented something stressful - from my personal space, and released the bad energy. We used it as kindling for a small fire in a fire bowl and then roasted marshmallows. I thought it was the perfect way to turn something bad into something good.

IMPORTANT NOTE/DISCLAIMER: Always check weather conditions before doing a burn of any kind. Dry conditions and/or windy conditions are not ideal. You don't want to attempt to rid yourself of negativity to end up with an even worse experience to remind you of it...Always use a fire pit or another container designed for fires and have something nearby like a hose or fire extinguisher just in case...

There are a lot of really cool events that are going on during the week of Earth Day on the University of Arkansas campus, throughout Fayetteville and Northwest Arkansas. Get out, enjoy the good weather, and learn at least one new thing that you can do to help the environment while you're at it...and don't forget to stop by the Fayetteville Farmer's Market on Saturday morning to support our local farmers, bakers, and other creative folk.

Happy weekend everyone...and Happy Earth Day!

~~~

Coming soon: 

I'm in the process of reading a book called So What Are You Going to Do with That?: Finding Careers Outside Academia, by Susan Basalla and Maggie Debelius. As a career counselor for graduate students, I realize that some students aspire to join the ranks as tenure-track faculty, and others have decided that the "ivory tower" is not the path they want to follow. The text takes us through the experiences of others who have advanced degrees and chose a different post-degree path. I should have a review for you in the next few weeks. So far, I'm really enjoying it. It's a fairly quick read (which is always good for graduate students) and only $9.06 on Amazon right now. You might want to pick up a copy...

- D.