Beat Q&A

Grace Neiconi is an intern at the University of Georgia’s Office of Sustainability and is in the process of getting the sustainability certificate. Her role as the sustainability certificate intern is mainly communications. 

 

Q: How would you define sustainability for someone who doesn’t know what it is?

A: I think sustainability is the broad aspect of maintaining resources for future generations and asking yourself, “How can we make the world a great place today and also for future generations?” If you think of sustainability as this large umbrella and then there’s all these little subcategories that fall under it. The more I get into it the more I’m like “woah.” It’s a really big rabbit hole you’ll keep going under. 

 

Q: Is there a branch of sustainability that you focus on the most?

A: My minor is fashion merchandising, so I think that aspect of it is so interesting since fashion is the third largest pollutant on Earth. I think it’s crazy how we’ve gotten so used to being hyper marketed to, and as an advertising student it’s that internal debate of what's ethical and what’s not of how much we push onto consumers knowing what I know about sustainability. 

 

Q: Having a minor in fashion merchandising, what are your thoughts on monthly clothing rental services such as Nuuly or Rent the Runway? 

A: I think those are great. If you’re going to buy something to wear one time you’re better off renting from one of those. Obviously there’s the shipping and packaging, but those are small things compared to someone buying 15 things from Shein. 

 

Q: What’s your favorite sustainability initiative at UGA?

A: One example that’s really hands-on that I’ve been enjoying recently is CHaRM x UGA. There’s a place in Athens called CHaRM, which is the Center for Hard to Recycle Materials, and they just opened one in the MLC (Miller Learning Center). It’s basically a bunch of bins, and every single one is for a different type of material that’s hard to recycle. I think it’s so interesting, because, for example, if you have a sock that doesn’t have a match you can put it in the textiles waste and it gets turned into housing insulation. I just think it’s so cool because even when you donate clothes they just end up in landfills. 

 

Q: Is CHaRM x UGA a student run organization?

A: CHaRM itself is employee run, but we have sustainability grants  where if someone has a cool idea for how to implement sustainability on campus you can write a proposal and someone will donate money for it. One student was like,“Oh, I think we should have a dropbox on campus,” and got one of them that way. 

 

Q: As college students, why should sustainability be important to us and what should we implement into our lives to be more sustainable?

A: I think it’s good to learn about sustainability at any age, but when you’re at this age it’s just setting up good practices that you’ll carry into the rest of your life. For a lot of students it’s their first election voting, so I think it’s really interesting to look at what policies the presidential candidates care about, and even in local elections. 

 

Comments trimmed for length and clarity.