8 | JANUARY 31, 2020
OP/ED
Letter to the Editor
How to save the Earth - and your money Framingham State was named among the most environmentally friendly colleges in America by “The Princeton Review.” FSU does a good job trying to reduce their carbon footprint. According to Framingham.edu, two solar PV arrays were installed on the athletic building and campus center. There is also a food composting program and the University utilizes water-saving dishwashers. However, I have noticed some less environmentally friendly things happening around campus such as leaving the water on in the bathroom, wasting food in the dining commons, and littering. The community can improve their efforts to make campus a healthier place. People need an incentive to want to make a change. Here’s one everyone can get behind - being environmentally friendly can save you money and here are some tips. Though buying plastic water bottles in bulk is not cheap, a pack of 35 Poland Spring water bottles is nearly $30 at Walmart - FSU has water bubblers around campus to refill a plastic or glass bottle, saving you hundreds, if not thousands a year on
water alone. Plastic water bottles are also damaging to the environment. According to Myequa.com, plastic bottles take 700 years to dissolve and 24 million liters of oil are required to produce billions of plastic bottles. If you buy a reusable bottle, you are saving plastic and minimizing expenses - it’s a win-win. If you are a resident student, you need to pay $1.75 to wash one load of clothes and another $1.75 to dry them. That is $3.50 every time you need to do laundry. Resident students live on campus roughly 36 weeks out of the year - if you do a load a week, that’s $126 over the course of the year, on top of your other expenses. Using cold water while washing clothes is a more eco-friendly approach. According to epa.gov, heating the water takes up 90% of the energy the machine utilizes. The site also suggests washing in full loads as you can save 3,400 gallons of water each year. These methods don’t cost you a dime but can minimize your carbon footprint, saving our home.\ Investing in a dry rack can help you cut the cost of drying in half - which is $63 saved on laundry while conserving water. Dry racks are cheap,
and you can get one at Walmart for $10. Most dry racks are small and collapsible and can fit in the average college dorm room. Some students eat on the go or in their dorm as they are too busy to make it to the dining commons. Using paper dining wear is typical for many college students. Instead, try buying microwave-safe reusable dining wear. It’s more expensive in the short term, but you’ll end up saving more in the long run because you won’t have to keep buying paper plates over and over again. Along with being more affordable, it will help minimize paper waste. Lastly, taking notes electron-
ically can save you money on buying notebooks, while also saving paper and a trip to the store. Being a college student can be financially distressing, but there are ways you can ease the ache of your bank account while simultaneously helping the Earth. If each college student takes these little steps, we can make a big impact. Sincerely,
Caroline Gordon Editorial Staff
More than just five stages By Kenzie Ward Interim Columnist I sat in the cafeteria of the National Archives in Washington, D.C. over my January break when a tsunami of grief swallowed my family. News of my great Aunt Patty’s death poured through the cracks in the walls I had built around myself with bricks of hope. Hope. Hope that the woman who had helped raise me since I was 6 months old would make it. Her passing followed a mere 32 hours after her husband’s death due to injuries sustained in a car accident. I could see my mom’s mouth wording something out to me, but I was drowning. The tsunami had consumed me whole and I could barely breathe. I was 446 miles away from home and there has never been another moment in my life I so desperately desired Dorothy’s ruby red slippers. I was mad at myself. For not calling them more. For not canceling the trip even though their doctors told me to go. For not being able to remember the last time I told them “I love you.” People showed their support understanding what I was going through, but others did more harm than good. I don’t want to hear you say “their death was a blessing.” The implication that “at least” something worse hadn’t happened downplays what people go through. As if they are not allowed
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to grieve because at least something worse hadn’t happened. My pain and loss are not a “blessing.” When they first passed, I had a lot of people reaching out to me - giving me advice about grief, sending me articles, telling me it gets easier, and telling me they knew what I was going through. Many people had me believing I would deal with my grief in a very cookie-cutter way. That I would go through the five stages of grief and everything would be OK. What many fail to realize when they aren’t in your shoes is that grieving is not linear, or even a relatable experience in most cases. There are not necessarily five predefined stages everyone follows in order to cope with their grief. It’s often uncontrollable and creates a life of its own. Many times, the grieving process is a disorganized mess of trying to figure out how to live your life with what feels like a piece of you is now missing. The hole is a void I have tried to fill with memories of what was once there, but nothing will ever come close enough to fill it than their actual presence here with me. Everyone deals with trauma in different ways, so no one can be expected to have similar experiences when an event to this degree occurs. As time passed, the initial tsunami did too but it has left me in pieces and
I am still trying to recover. As the weeks continue to pass, there are good days and then there are the really bad days where I just want to stay in bed and don’t want to talk to anyone. No, I am not OK, and I don’t think I will ever be. But, just as others who
deal with unexpected loss of loved ones, I’ll learn how to cope with my grief. But the loss of my loved ones will never get easier.
