Leadership, Zero Waste, and Environmental Issues

The term "leadership" is probably one of the most difficult ones to define. That was how our Tuesday started. However, quick line-ups and group work pushed the discussion forward and we made sure that when it comes to leadership, the same ideas came to our minds -sharing, respect, engagement and responsibility.

After that we had an amazing zero waste tour around the University of Oregon with Cims Gillespie and in the afternoon experienced how complicated it can be to separate waste. What we encode as "paper" before putting to the zero waste station (that's how trash boxes for separate collection are called here on campus) actually has several variations and has to pass through one more separation stage. As Johanne, one of our students, said, "hope we didn't do it too wrong":) But the most inspiring thing about this process was that it is normally done by the volunteers, which was an important insight into U.S. culture.

Every day I am feeling the importance of what we are doing here better and better. I have no doubts that it is also true about everyone else here, on the Environmental Issues Institute.