Eco-Club Sets New Objectives

The Eco-Club on campus is one of the many groups at Santa Monica College determined to make a difference for the better.

Their latest meeting took place Thursday during the activity hour. The meeting laid out the basic objectives of the club, along with what they are prepared to do in order to successfully complete their objectives.

"More meet times means more progress" is just one of many things that were discussed at the meeting.

Club members were very descriptive about how they want to contact teachers in order to get extra credit for participating in the club activities if their specified field of study was related to it. Other information that was discussed was the need for an environmental director - one of the major objectives the club wanted to achieve.

Another objective was the need for more people to join in on the action. In order to further expand their club to get more members, they decided that they needed to spread the word out to the campus and one such action was to pass out information on what the Eco-club is all about and what they plan to do in order to make the school and the community more eco-friendly.

Sai Duhamel, the leader of the Eco-club, attended the meeting and managed to give a general overview of why he came to SMC and joined the eco-club.

"Because of my interest in sustainable living," he said. The reason he came to SMC in the first place was because of the "A.A. degree program," and also because he had been interested in the Center of Environmental and Urban Studies.

Duhamel said that the membership of the club at this point is spread out.

There are from eight to 10 people involved so far, but if you go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/members_ecoactionclub there are roughly 30 to 40 people who are willing to help out the environment around them. One of Duhamel's ideas is to do more outreach next semester as this one is already coming to a close next month.

Duhamel mentioned that the ICC and the A.S. are environmentally friendly and that they are on good terms with the Eco-Club. This could be one advantage that the Eco-Club has to expand their horizons for next semester.

Other ideas that he has for SMC is a food garden that could be cultivated at school or close to it, alternative energy programs, and educating people on the importance of recycling. He wants there to be measures that will prohibit littering on campus, possibly with fines for littering.

Group members discussed how during Club Row, Eco-club members picked up about 20 pounds of garbage that was left lying around campus.

Duhamel also has some very interesting side projects that students can be able to do in order to help the environment.

One such idea is to use better alternatives to the plastic and Styrofoam cups that are used all over campus. He also offered to gather cereal boxes and one-sided paper, which can be re