This semester, PIRGIM Students worked to phase out unnecessary single-use plastics, register new voters, and alleviate hunger and homelessness. Much of our pollution comes from unnecessary items that we’ve known for decades we shouldn’t be using. Single-use plastics are clogging our landfills, littering our communities, and polluting our parks and waterways. Here in Michigan, we’re seeing some of the worst impacts of this problem. More than 22 million pounds of plastic pollution end up in our Great Lakes every year. Nothing we use for a few minutes should pollute our ecosystem for thousands of years. That’s why we’ve been working for the past semester to phase out unnecessary single-use plastics from our campus. With the semester wrapping up, I wanted to send a quick update on all the work we were able to accomplish this Fall.
Break Free from Plastics
We think that Wayne State University can lead the way on this issue by becoming the first college in Michigan to sign the Break Free from Plastics Pledge, and to show our support we collected petitions from over 300 students.
We have also been collaborating with the Student Senate and with members of the President’s Standing Committee on Environmental Issues, and can’t wait to see the next steps that Wayne State takes to continue setting an example for what it looks like to be a sustainable university!
Hunger and Homelessness
This term we also worked to help students meet their basic needs. Food and housing insecurity has been a problem on college campuses – but it became even worse during the pandemic. According to recent surveys, 38 percent of college students say that they don’t have the means to meet their basic needs, let alone stay enrolled for the next term. That’s why we partnered with the W pantry and held a food drive during Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week. We collected 117 cans that were donated to the W pantry! We also distributed resource lists across campus to educate students about the programs available to them to access food and housing.
We have big plans next semester to continue to break free from plastics and address food insecurity on campus, as well as train the next generation of student activists!
We’re so excited to continue our campaigns next semester and would love to meet with you to talk more about how we can work together! Let me know if you can meet before the semester ends
Happy Holidays,
Nashmia Akhtar
PIRGIM Club President