With Friday, April 22 marking the 2016 Earth Day, Castleton’s celebrated the green holiday by creating a week of eco-friendly events and activities across campus and the surrounding community.
In the spirit of applauding environmental awareness, dedicated Castleton students and faculty focused their efforts by organizing several community-wide clean ups throughout the week.
“Actually doing something, even as small as picking up some trash for a few hours a day adds up and shows you that individual actions can make a difference,” said senior Patrick Cote-Abel, who led the clean up efforts.
The double major in History and Communication with a minor in Global Studies, along with various students and faculty members hit the town as part of the green up efforts. From Tuesday to Thursday interested individuals met at the pre-set location and worked for several hours to clean up multiple sections of the town roadway.
By the end of the week the groups was able to remove more than 270 pounds of garbage from the side of the roads.
“We were all very happy to chip in and do our part,” said Cote-Abel. “Once we had decided we were done for the day a lot of people told me that now that they knew how badly the roads were polluted they would be happy to come out again and help me do more, despite the event being over.”
In addition to the clean ups, students wore green and participated in events such as the friendly Residence Halls Electricity Reduction Competition led by Natural Sciences Professor Andrew Vermilyea, and the Earth Day “Back to Earth” 5K trail run.