College gets on its bike for annual Green Week

With events ranging from a tutorial on beekeeping to a fashion show using only recycled materials, Trinity College’s eighth annual Green Week took campus by storm last week.
According to Facilities Officer Noel McCann, the week is both a celebration of nature and a forum for new ideas about sustainability. “Green Week not only offers advice on how we can all make small changes to ensure a more sustainable future but also gives us an opportunity to meet, share ideas and discover aspects of College that perhaps we did not know before,” McCann said.
Green Week began on Monday with a speech from Senator David Norris. Norris, who has been involved with Green Week from its inception in 2002, is enthusiastic about Green Week’s mission and purpose. “I think that Trinity has done a very good job,” he said. “Green Week certainly raises people’s consciousness in a good-humoured way.”
Later on Monday afternoon, a new tree was planted at the College’s Nassau Street entrance in order to replace the Horse Chestnut tree removed in the summer of 2009. “I think [planting the tree] was a rather good symbolic gesture,” said Norris.
The week continued on Tuesday with a Green Fair in the Arts Building, a talk from local beekeeper Eamon McGee, a Frisbee Contest, and a series of talks on careers in the “Green sector”. Speakers from corporations and from Trinity College’s engineering department gave talks that evening on Ireland’s future as a “low-carbon economy”.
Wednesday’s events began with “Bike to College Day”, after which students were given free tea and coffee. Dr. Patrick Wyse Jackson led students on a walk among Trinity’s buildings with an emphasis on stone decay, and students could later attend a bicycle repair workshop and a forum from Trinity’s Entrepreneurial Society on sustainable business ideas.
Thursday saw a tree walk from Mr. David Hackett, Grounds Supervisor, as well as a community garden workshop and a pub quiz from the Engineering Society. Throughout the day, a one-day exhibition by the PhD students of TrinityHaus examined the carbon and ecological footprints of ten different people in Dublin.
Friday began with a Bird Walk led by Aidan Kelly and ended with the Junk Into Funk Fashion Show at the Pavilion.
The theme of the week was ‘Trinity 10:10 – Tackling the Carbon Crunch,’ and the week is closely affiliated with the 10:10 campaign, which aims to reduce carbon emissions by 10 percent in 2010.
Students responded strongly to Green Week’s mission and events. “The natural environment is where we live and can’t be ignored,” said Zaki Mahfoud, a Junior Sophister in Environmental Sciences and member of the Environmental Society.
“More research has to be done into environmental issues, but more importantly, this knowledge needs to be made known to everyone.”