Coming into its first full year as a club at the College, Bowdoin Green Athletes (BGA) looks to continue its campaign to ingrain sustainability into the athletic culture at Bowdoin, through a team-by-team strategy and a “Rerun Shoes” initiative.
“We’ve made great progress in how we communicate with teams, get recycle bins out at games,” said Alex Tougas ’14, one of the clubs founders. “And, our effort with the shoe recycling has been huge.”
Last year, BGA met with Bowdoin alumnus Jeremy Litchfield of Atayne, a Brunswick store that sells athletic clothing recycled from water bottles, to brainstorm sustainability ideas that could be applied to athletics.
“We decided to start with shoes since they are easier because clothing is very specific,” said BGA member Emma Chow ’15.
Chow and BGA then researched companies and found Rerun Shoes, started by another Bowdoin alumnus, Michael Aronson.
BGA currently has two boxes located in Farley Field House and Buck Fitness Center for students to donate their old, unwanted sneakers.
“All the ones that can be used are sent to West Africa to micro-entrepreneurs, and they sell them so people can use them there,” said Chow. “So rather than down-cycling the shoes into turf or some sort of rubber they’re actually re-used as shoes.”
Chow estimates that they have sent around 200 pounds of shoes so far.
BGA has urged the athletic team representatives to discuss how they can improve their team’s sustainability efforts.
“Ninety percent of the teams have pledged some sort of commitment,” said Tougas. “The commitments are team specific. I’m on the swim team and we’ve worked to decrease the amount of towels we put in the wash.”
“By starting with one thing that they have to do this season we want to transition into a cultural shift by integrating sustainability so that it’s normal in athletics on campus,” said Chow. “If people consciously take notice of their actions, they can make a difference. But they also need to know why they make that difference and that’s where the team reps are the information source.”
Some team representatives have said that initiating pledge discussions is challenging.
“Its tough to sell to people that maybe haven’t been exposed to it to a certain degree,” said Tougas.
Chow expressed frustration in the effort to change people’s ingrained habits.
“Some people just want to use water bottles, and they find it too inconvenient to recycle them,” she said.
Tougas believes that athletes’ sustainability actions will serve as a model for the rest of campus.
“Our hope was that by involving athletes we could piggy back off of natural leaders on campus,” said Tougas.
Ashmead White Director of Athletics Tim Ryan said he supports BGA’s efforts.
“We recognize it’s a broad campus issue and we’re pleased to work with students to have a impact on the overall community effort,” said Ryan.
“Tim Ryan has been excellent in terms of working with us; he’s made us think about how we can improve, he has our back in many of these initiatives,” said Tougas.
Ryan recognizes areas of the athletic department that could improve in terms of sustainability.
He specified that walking or biking—rather than driving—to practice and facilitating clean up efforts are good sfirst steps for the entire athletic community at Bowdoin to take.
Chow is unsure of what the final plan for the team pledges is, but shared ideas BGA is considering.
“We would like to put the pledges in some sort of visual display on campus or maybe at the athletic banquet to acknowledge the efforts of those teams that pledged,” said Chow.
They also hope to add a sustainability pledge to the sportsmanship pledge at beginning of game announcements.
Alice Henly of the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental nongovernmental organization, visited Bowdoin to give advice to BGA. According to Tougas, Henly stressed two major ways BGA can improve: through the use of humor and the designing of a green logo to brand athletics and sustainability.
BGA is using humor in its effort to tackle another issue facing sustainability—spitting in the gym recycling bins. They plan to hang posters in the gym that have an image of a llama spitting with the slogans: “Please don’t spit in the recycle bins. No llamas allowed” and “Keep your saliva in. Don’t spit in the recycling bin!”
BGA is currently working on becoming an official club through the Student Organization Oversight Committee, and hope to be chartered by next fall.
“It would be really good if we had our own funding and didn’t have to rely on the sustainability department and environmental studies to get funds,” said Chow. “It would give us more independence to do bigger projects.”