Over the next five years, a DeKalb County university pledged to reduce or eliminate unnecessary plastic items, mirroring similar initiatives from Atlanta and other metro cities.
Emory University President Gregory L. Fenves signed the “Break Free from Plastic Pledge” on June 15, which outlines a multiyear plan to reduce single-use plastics at the university’s Atlanta and Oxford campuses, according to a news release. The pledge was created by the student-led Plastic Free Emory Project initiative.
The university said it would establish a task force, which would implement a year-by-year plastic reduction strategy by 2026. The task force would also explore viable alternatives to single-use plastics and attempt to follow in the footsteps of Atlanta, which enacted a single-use plastics ban in 2019.
Several other metro cities, such as South Fulton and Clarkston, adopted similar policies. Atlanta’s ban also applies to Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, but it may take a decade before all of its restaurants and businesses have to comply.
According to the press release, Emory is the first college or university in Georgia to make a pledge of this kind in the state. It’s also the only student-led campaign in the state to receive support from its university.
“College campuses are essentially ‘living laboratories,’ where students have the unique opportunity to create sustainability projects at a small scale, that can then be translated to implement change in the real world, on a larger scale,” said CJ O’Brien, a recent Emory graduate, co-founder of Plastic Free Emory and an intern for the nonprofit Oceana. “By passing this pledge we will be joining a global movement, and we hope it will inspire even more campuses, businesses and cities in Georgia and beyond to adopt a plan to phase out unnecessary single-use plastic.”
For more information on Plastic Free Emory and its initiatives, visit plasticfreeemory.carrd.co.
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