Letters To The Editor

RecycleMania Has A Positive Impact

Dan Cunningham's column, "RecycleMania's Method Is Flawed, Misguided" (Feb. 7) is, well, misguided. Cunningham is wrong to suggest that recycling is not an environmentally beneficial practice and that RecycleMania is counterproductive. His commentary does have one valid point: that waste reduction is better than recycling. Reduce and reuse come before recycle in the famous slogan for a reason. Reducing consumption and reducing our waste is absolutely better than recycling, but recycling is far better than land filling or incinerating and making products from virgin materials.

Recycling is absolutely an environmentally beneficial practice as it reduces solid waste and reduces green house gas emissions. Compared to producing products from virgin materials, recycling saves enormous amounts of energy and prevents pollution and land degradation associated with mining and drilling. For example, it takes about 95 percent less energy to recycle an aluminum can than it does to make one from virgin material. For other materials, the energy savings are about 70 percent for plastics, 60 percent for steel, 40 percent for paper and 30 percent for glass. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in 2006, 82 million tons of material was recycled preventing about 50 million metric tons of carbon emissions, roughly the amount emitted annually by 39 million cars, saving the energy equivalent to 10 billion gallons of gasoline.

RecycleMania is not about promoting consumption, but about raising awareness and changing student, staff and faculty habits. Though UConn is not participating in RecycleMania's waste reduction division this year (it can't since UConn does not currently track all total solid waste tonnage) waste reduction is still being encouraged, as it has for years through use of reusable EcoHusky mugs and double-sided copies. Other efforts to reduce waste are popping up on campus. The UConn Co-op just started selling reusable bags and is setting up a donation program for customers that don't take plastic bags. There are even some people on campus that would like to see UConn kick the bottled water habit.

As UConn's recycling program continues to improve and students continue to demand a more environmentally responsible campus, I hope that next year UConn will be in a position to track our waste reduction and be able to compete in that part of RecycleMania. In the mean time RecycleMania will only help UConn reduce its environmental impact as it forces us to closely monitor our recycling efforts and encourages the UConn community to develop the recycling habit.

I spent this morning picking up recyclables around campus with the Willimantic Waste recycling truck, and was appalled by the amount of unread newspapers we found. If Cunningham wants to get serious about reducing waste on campus, he should focus his efforts on encouraging the paper he writes in to stop printing thousands of papers that don't get read. Let's get serious about recycling and waste reduction rather than spreading bad information.

RecycleMania is on, and you're in the game. Go Huskies!

-Dan Britton Sustainability Coordinator Office of Environmental Policy

Blood Pressue Screening Valuable And Necessary

Starting this past weekend at the Feb. 2 women's basketball game, the American Pharmacists Association kicked off its Red Dress Campaign. The Red Dress Campaign is an event held in order to increase awareness about high blood pressure. Before and during half-time, students from the School of Pharmacy took blood pressure readings of patrons. After the blood pressure readings were taken, 5th-year pharmacy students counseled the attendants about high blood pressure and what can be done to either treat or prevent this problem.

High blood pressure, also known in medical jargon as hypertension, is very important to treat. Although one does not feel sick when they have high blood pressure, it can lead to very serious health issues in the future. High blood pressure can potentially lead to strokes and heart attacks. Normal blood pressure readings are 120/80 mmHG or lower.

Some ways to stay at this target goal is to eat healthy by avoiding salt, saturated fat and cholesterol. Regular exercise is important as well. Exercise does not need to be too difficult or strenuous. All one really needs is about 20 minutes a day and only to the point of breaking a light sweat. Of course, there are also medications that can be taken if one is still not completely at their goal.

The American Pharmacists Association will be holding another blood pressure screening and counseling session for the Red Dress Campaign at the women's basketball coming up on Feb. 12. For anybody planning to watch this game at Gampel Pavilion, I encourage you to drop by and get your blood pressure checked and get some more information on the fight against hypertension.

-Jeffery Lalama 9th-semester pharmacy major