During sustainability week hosted by the office of sustainability, i attended the Point of Intervention Tour. Throughout the year, the Office of Sustainability organizes several events around campus and the community to create an awareness about how to be sustainable. From talks about social justice to recycling project the Office works in all different aspects of the topic of sustainability. Between the Office of Sustainability and the schools QEP of sustainable literacy and “training the brain to sustain”, I believe the College of Charleston is making sustainability a main issue that needs to be tackled throughout the school and community.

With this event, the Point of Intervention tour tackles the underlying problem of consumption in our society today. We have become a society that consumes more than we need and throws out what is still useful. This leading to overconsumption and increased amounts of waste going into landfills, waterways, and in our air. By intervening at different points of the process from extraction to disposal we can recycle more, reuse more and dispose less.

The event was all about learning to repair and reuse what you already have to you can be the point of intervention from something going to landfills and becoming waste. They are challenging the consumption model that is seen so widely today to create a more sustainable model. The consumption model today is a linear model like we learned in class. It goes from extract to produce to distribution to consumption to disposal. This linear model doesn’t give room to redirect resources and waste which is an unsustainable route for consumption.

I think this was a very important event that the office of sustainability organized. With our generation being the next to directly influence what happens to this earth, it is important to realize that the habits our society has now, can be changed. By showing people how easy it is to repair and reuse things and buy second hand, we can change our consumption habits and thereby change the consumption economy. While walking around the event they had second hand clothing, bike share information, people to help show you how to repair, reusable bottles and talked about the harm of single use plastic.  

The picture above was the flyer they used to advertise the event and it is a great illustration to show the different points at which we can change how we are using our resources. It shows repairing, reusing, recovering and reclaiming to create less waste going in to landfills. With the hand on the right side, I personally think that it is representing the human impact on the earth and that we are directly responsible for climate change. I think that we need to have more events such as this one so that the students here at the College can become more aware of the issues will continue to affect us. With constant exposure to sustainability issues and ways to combat it through events, it can have a positive effect on limiting our consumption habits.