New Orleans annual Christmas Tree Recycling Program took place this January in an effort to aid the restoration of Louisiana’s wetlands, which Mark Tobler, a member of the biology department and the interdisciplinary environment program, emphasizes is important to the protection of the environment.
“The trees from Orleans parish residents are used to stabilize the shoreline within the Bayou Sauvage Wildlife Refuge in the east,” Tobler said.
He said the program avoids throwing these trees into the landfill where they will take years to decompose.
“They help wetlands to stabilize shorelines by creating a buffer that helps slow erosion from wave action, trap sediment that helps to build land and provide soil for plant growth. And all of that has long lasting effects on the city by reducing storm impacts,” he said.
Additionally, the wetlands provide natural protection from hurricanes, Tobler said, so the protection of these marshes prevents water from flooding into numerous homes.
Christmas tree recycling isn’t the only effort the city has made towards sustainability. Tobler lists many other initiatives on campus that work towards protecting the environment.
“There is glass recycling that so far has prevented over 8,000 lbs of glass from going into the landfill and is crushed into sand for reuse, we recently eliminated single use plastic bottles from vending machines across campus through our partnership with Pepsi, and there are a number of electric vehicle charging stations across campus.”
“The single stream recycling program collects paper, plastics and aluminum, the Food Recovery Network student organization is very active in packaging up the leftover Orleans Room food and donating it to local shelters, the Wolf Pack Move-Out at the end of the spring semester helps to re-purpose or donate items that student’s leave behind and prevent them from going to the landfill, and the new Mercy Dorm will be partially powered by solar panels on the roof,” Tobler said.
Tobler also stressed that small actions can make a major difference in making change.
“Protecting our environment that we all depend on can be accomplished by all of us in small daily actions or large group initiatives,” he said. “We just need the collective will.”
