"Nobody wants to share bikes with me."

Is your lack of a bicycle killing your dream of whizzing about the city streets, flattening your fantasy about buying groceries on the 72nd street Trader Joe’s, and placing an involuntary insurrection on your inclination to pop wheelies? The EcoReps want to know if you would be interested in a Columbia Bike Share: While plans are still in development, by taking a poll recently designed by the Reps, you help them craft the ideal program and show the administration that students are interested.

Bougie bike via wikimedia.

Bwog says it's thyme to spice up your kitchen

After postponing the Give and Go Green Sale yesterday, the EcoReps have come through! Those of us who have avoided the annual Bed, Bath & Beyond voyage need not go another night with barren kitchens. Stop by the Broadway Lounge at 11 to pick up “upperclassman items,” such as kitchen supplies, at a handy discount from their retail prices. Now you can feel good about helping the environment and stop eating your Easy Mac with a butter knife.

Poorly punned kitchen items via Wikimedia

By the sounding of the Conch, we summon you to the Green Sale in the John Jay lobby. At the annual Give and Go Green event, people donate their lightly used fridges and ethernet cords, and now you can buy them for a fraction of their Target prices. We call dibs on that blue chair.

The sale runs until 4, but we hear the EcoReps are really moving some merchandise (i.e. no fridges), so get there now. There will be a second sale on Tuesday with more upper-classmen-y things like kitchen appliances. Some pics for inspiration:

Give and Go Green 2011“>

This elephant knows what's up.

So you’ve finished your finals already…

YOU STILL NEED TO PACK. And no matter how many organic chemistry reactions memorized and 10-page papers you’ve BS’d, packing never gets any easier. Seriously! You’re hungover, you’ve got a ton of random shit that isn’t worth storing but not worth taking home either, you forgot to clean out your fridge, and something’s definitely gone moldy…it’s rough.

The solution? JUST GIVE YOUR STUFF AWAY! Hosted by your lovely CU EcoReps, Give and Go Green 2011 is in full swing and will take pretty much anything that’s in your room. They’ll be stationed at Wien Gate from 12-5 pm TODAY and tomorrow. Cart up your unwanted goods (the bookstore is only going to give you $7 for that textbook, anyway!) and head over to Wien. You’ll be glad you did.

Recycling “Bin” via Wikimedia Commons

free food tips. A great lover of free food has been revealed to us and now reports regularly on the quality, quantity, and pizazz of free food events around campus. Read on as The Scrounger goes green at the Ecopalooza. “>

Mother Earth

Most people like to eat. Most people do not like to spend money, hence our free food tips. A great lover of free food has been revealed to us and now reports regularly on the quality, quantity, and pizazz of free food events around campus. Read on as The Scrounger goes green at the Ecopalooza.

To bring to a close their Earth Week bonanza, Columbia EcoReps wanted to go out with a bang—enter, Ecopalooza. The event promised some yum yums, speakers on the environment, and the obligatory student group performances. And they nailed it.

I’ve been pretty bummed about the quality of free food events lately, and this one totally lifted my spirits. Ecopalooza was one of the best snack-a-thons I’ve seen on campus.

The Scorecard

Earth Mother Tattoo from Flickr/lindsey.dee.bunny

Midterm hibernators, it’s time to scurry out of your study dens and scamper over to Greenborough (604 W 114th St between Broadway and Riverside) for the Delish-a-thon 2.0, hosted by Greenborough and EcoReps! Your classmates will be participating in an “informal cooking competition” in the categories of Eggs ‘n’ Milk, Squash and Taters, Meaty Times, and Fruit. It sounds quite tasty, and at 7 pm, you get to snack on all the gourmet food (made with locally-grown ingredients, natch) they make! All you have to do is donate (okay, so the event isn’t totally free) a non-perishable item upon entry for a collection that will go to the Broadway Presbyterian. And don’t forget to bring your own plate and fork to facilitate your eating pleasures!

Fun Fact: A possible anagram for “Delish-a-thon!” is “Shh! Not a deli.” This is a sign, we’re sure of it.

Classic Fruit Still Life via Wikimedia Commons

SGA Bureau Chief Zoe Camp reports:

• Guests were the order of the evening. Claire Fram from Barnard Ecoreps, introduced the brand spankin’ new EcoActs section on their website for students to sign up for projects like the Barnard Clothing-Swap Coordinator, Earth week, etc.
• Bronwyn Moreno from Relay for Life announced that their recruiters, hoping to get more people involved, were moving back outside.
• Dean Lisa Norberg, who oversees Barnard’s library services, plans to buy more computers for Barnard Library, and cut down on a number of academic journals to conserve space.
• A network of Pre-Med students was recognized as a club! Happy 0th Birthday!

Image via wikimedia

Katheryn Thayer reports on last night’s SGA meeting.

• Coming up: Barnard Basketball Night! Saturday, February 5, 7pm at Levien Gym. Support the basketball team and breast cancer awareness! With special appearance from Bacchantae, singing the national anthem.
• EcoReps will hold their first potluck of the semester February 2 at 7 in the Diana dining room. The topic of discussion will be energy-related. The school store now has an EcoRep certified section with sustainable products.
• ResLife shared some love by bringing brownies to the meeting, perhaps to sweeten ominous news regarding the most stressful time of the year – housing. The representative mentioned some of their priorities include kitchens and bathrooms in the 600s and renovations made in Plimpton. This summer, they will try to shuffle residents so that they can renovate 600 and 620, keeping 616 open. The work in Plimpton isn’t debatable because there are problems with heat and hot water.
• Barnard and Columbia are working together on a gender-neutral housing initiative. Interesting fact: if your room is too hot, opening the window just disturbs the heating system, which will self adjust to make it hotter!

Roary usurps the team's poster space

Basketball Mania

10:00pm to 11:00pm in the Levien Gymnasium in Dodge (doors open at 9:30pm).

The basketball season is beginning, which means that CU Athletics is bribing us all to venture down into the bowels of Dodge and watch whatever shenanigans go on during Bball Mania. Go early and bring your CUID. The first 600 students get a mini Columbia basketball, a Basketball Manila t-shirt and other unspecified free things.

Delish-a-thon

7:30pm to 10:00pm in Greenborough House (604 W114th Street between Broadway and Riverside). Cooking starts at 6:00pm.

The Greenborough/Eco-Reps are hosting a culinary competition a la Top Chef with fun food categories and some complicated-sounding eco-themed guidelines. You can still sign your team (of 2) up by emailing tan2105@columbia.edu. There will be free food, along with presentations and films about food awareness.

Cost of entry: Non-perishable goods to be donated to Broadway Presbyterian Food Pantry. Bring your own tupperware and an appetite!

IEEE will be hosting a talk by Glenn Zorpotte about Antarctica titled “Life on Ice” at 6 PM tonight in the Davis Auditorium. Free pizza!

The Barnard EcoReps have gathered today in front of the Barnard Gates to celebrate Park(ing) Day, an international movement to transform public parking spots into welcoming, more people-friendly spaces for one day. Today, 50 Park(ing) Spots may be found in all five boroughs of New York. For more information, check out blog.parkingdaynyc.org.

Bwog visited Greenborough’s parking spot, located on Broadway between 113th and 114th streets. It looked like fun! People were mingling and eating pizza. There was even a bed for lounging.

The Columbia EcoReps are hosting their semi-annual “Reduce, Reuse, Save” Green sale starting today. That’s for you, fridge-less freshman! From noon to 4 pm in John Jay Lounge, the EcoReps will be peddling used dorm essentials– lamps, furniture, etc– for cheap. The sale will also continue from September 7-9 in Broadway Lounge from 3-7 PM each day. Save yourself the Bed, Bath & Beyond schlep, and do good things for Planet Earth. The Power is yours!

The EcoReps are out on College Walk for Give + Go Green today between 12 and 4, collecting your donations of non-perishable food, clothing in good condition, kitchenware, appliances, linens, shoes, accessories, small furniture, books, computers and toiletries. Donations will be distributed to those in need in the New York City area.

There are ample opportunities to donate: Wednesday between 12-4 at the Carman Gate, and Thursday and Friday between 12-5 at the Wien Gate. You can also donate smaller items in the Carman basement lounge, the Furnald laundry room, the Hartley 10th floor lounge, the Broadway lounge, the 1rst floor McBain lounge, 1H Watt, Ruggles basement by the pool table, Schapiro main lounge, and Wien second floor lounge. Starting May 15, seniors can donate in the EC 2nd floor lounge, River basement lounge, and the Woodbridge basement. Phew!

Bwog would also like to direct your attention to another environmentally project in the neighborhood: the Morningside Heights CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) is back in action, teaming up with a new farm in Orange County, CA NY. For $160 a share (shares are split between 3-4 people), you can have fresh vegetable delivered to you for 8 weeks, from early September to late October. Shares include 8-10 items per week, depending on what’s fresh from the farm. Email morningsideheightscsa@gmail.com for more information or head to the Lerner ramps between 5-8 PM on tomorrow and Thursday.

Sign-ups close tomorrow for the EcoRep’s third annual “Do It in the Dark” Energy Challenge! The competition is designed to encourage energy conservation and gauge students’ environmental habits and beliefs. Sign-up now, fill out a brief survey, and potentially win prizes! The dorm that reduces its electricity use the most per capita compared to last year will win over $500 in prizes. By registering and filling out the “Sign-Up Survey,” you will be entered into three additional raffles that will take place throughout April. Keep filling out weekly surveys and refer your friends to increase your chances. So sign-up, tell a friend, and “do it in the dark!”

EcoReps are giving away free hot chocolate and cold cider if you sign up for their new energy challenge. Lerner ramps. Looks like you will also get a free SMILE!

Well, there could be, if you want them. You probably won’t find them invading uninvited, but if you chose, these creepy crawlers could help to significantly eliminate your own food waste and the university’s carbon footprint. Bwog’s Slime Specialist Liz Naiden reports on the initiatives to bring worm composting technology to students in the first installment of GreenBwog; a feature on cool green stuff students are doing around campus. 

There are currently nine worm boxes at Columbia: two in the Greenboro special interest house and seven in the rooms of members of the Food Sustainability Project, which co-sponsors The Worm Initiative with the EcoReps. There used to be a tenth box, says EcoRep Todd Nelson as he sets down his box o’worms for show and tell. The girl who kept it developed a phobia of the creatures’ undulation early in the year and had to give up her own box. They undulate like snakes, she said. 

Sad, says Nelson, considering how cool the critters are. Worms are essentially eating and pooping tubes – food goes in one way, poo comes out the other. But their poo smells way better than ours – in fact, Nelson’s composting box smells positively like nature. Well, it smells like soil, because worm poo is the fertilizer found in natural dirt. The fertilizers produced by these particular worms will go to Columbia’s Community Garden Project.

But perhaps more important than what comes out is what goes in. Mixed in with a layer of wet newspaper is various vegan food waste from the house – the worms, as well as many Greenborough residents, are devout vegans. It’s possible that the worms are conscious of the worldwide impact of their diets, but more importantly, non-vegan material would make the box smell like a lot more like a city garbage can. Read more…