UTEP Students Implement Eco-Takeouts Program
The University of Texas at El Paso has launched an initiative to help reduce waste on campus during lunch.
The program, called Eco-Takeouts and led by UTEP’s green team, is designed to get rid of styrofoam plates and boxes and replace them with reusable containers.
UTEP students Fernanda Lugo and James Holt pitched the program to UTEP’s green fund, which later approved it for a pilot run of 500 reusable containers. Students themselves have the choice to enroll in the Eco-Takeouts program by purchasing a green token they turn in to receive their reusable Tupperware.
For Lugo and Holt, this became an opportunity to have an immediate impact on campus. They got idea for the program after noticing the student union trash cans full of styrofoam.
“What really bugged us is we would walk around campus and even some of these trash cans behind us there would literally be styrofoam boxes, not only filling the can, but sometimes stacked several feet high,” Holt said.
The program was funded through the university’s green fee, which is a three dollar charge included in every student’s tuition every semester. Now that the program has launched, it will be maintained through the purchase of the green token which has a one time cost of five dollars.
Sodexo, one of the main food services providers on campus, signed on to participate, hoping the program will help lower its monthly styrofoam plate expenditures.
The Eco-Takeout program has not been an overnight success, however. Holt and Lugo had to go through many challenges to start the program, from receiving the funds to put the initial order, to getting approval from the UT system to put the UTEP logo on the box.
“With any kind of change that occurs when confronted with how bureaucracy works, we encountered some of those obstacles especially as students proposing new ideas,” Lugo said.
Dozens of campuses around the nation are participating in the Eco-Takeouts program, but it is new to UTEP and the city of El Paso. Holt believes this is an opportunity to bring a change not only to the University but to the entire city of El Paso. He is inspired by bigger cities like Portland that have implemented this type of programs city-wide.
“There are other universities where they are fully supportive, and the City of Portland actually started a city wide where there were a couple hundred food vendors were using the same Eco-Takeouts boxes, and honestly our dream is to see something like that here.” Holt said.
