College campuses are among the most difficult places to live in ways that do not have negative environmental impacts. We don’t decide how on campus food is served to us or what types of containers it comes in. Additionally, recycling in Ames is extremely difficult due to the lack of a recycling plant, so all recyclables are simply burned as fuel. This leads many students to avoid even making an attempt to responsibly dispose of recyclable materials.

Fortunately, students can lessen their negative impact on the environment through countless ways on campus, and Iowa State has groups and classes that can teach us all what they are. Students should embrace any of these opportunities to help leave their campus and world in better shape.

Colleges campuses and communities must not shy away from these sustainable undertakings. College communities are in of themselves small samples of the larger communities they are associated with and by extension the nation as a whole. Iowa State students should embrace the opportunity to set the tone for Ames to become a more sustainable community.

Today, Oct. 22, is National Campus Sustainability Day and dozens of ISU student organizations, as well as several independent off-campus groups, will be meeting from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the free speech zone in front of Parks Library.

Sustainability is the practice of “meeting the needs of today without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs,” according to an ISU sustainability webpage.

The Green Umbrella — a student organization that attempts to bring together all sustainability groups on campus — invited more than 25 organizations from the university and Ames community to demonstrate how student may live more sustainably.

Live Green!, the ISU Office of Sustainability, also helped organize the event. The organization is an initiative to challenge ISU students, faculty and staff to make campus as green as possible. Live Green! has a list of clubs and organizations dedicated to the green movement on its webpage that students are welcome to join.

Live Green! and various other sustainability organizations want students to know that living green can be more than just recycling and riding a bike. Organizations like Closets Collide — a group that promotes sustainability in retail and fashion — and PrISUm Solar Car Team — an organization that works to inspire students to look for sustainable solutions through building solar cars — hopes the examples they and other organizations set show students that sustainability can be applied to more areas of their lives.

Students can find more information or how to join these organization under the get connected tab on livegreen.iastate.edu.

ISU students also have the opportunity to study sustainability as an interdisciplinary minor. The minor provides the opportunity for students to learn how “decisions they make as consumers, workers, resource owners, citizens and policymakers affect human welfare in this and future generations,” according to an ISU sustainability webpage.

And with a culture like Iowa State’s, why would students want to get involved with sustainability? Students should embrace and be proud of the culture Iowa State has set with its leadership in energy and environmental design, or LEED, certifications.

The university has two buildings with platinum, four with gold and two with silver certifications for green building. LEED also ranks Iowa State as the “greenest” college in Iowa, according to iowaenviornmentalfocus.org.

Iowa State also made the Princeton Review’s green honor roll, which lists the American colleges and universities which received perfect scores on the organization’s Green Rating tallies. Only 24 schools made the list, so Iowa State is therefore a member of a fairly exclusive club when it comes to sustainable thinking.

Get involved with the green school you go to, have a positive impact on the earth and please recycle this newspaper.