Students rail against ‘microcosm of junk’ at university freshers’ week

Greenhouse said that companies that trolled the university campus this week to sell students their products had been responsible for the large amount of waste on the university grounds.

“Numerous companies pack the University quadrangle to lure students to buy their products. Day after day many of these companies and other entities hand over paper leaflets to passing students, informing them of their offers, discounts or freebies and many of these papers end up littering the quadrangle.

“By the end of the day, the place is filled with coloured papers flying around – a  show of complete waste of resources. Paper and ink is used to produce such promotional material, only to end up discarded a couple of seconds later,” Greenhouse said.

The University of Malta is seeing a resurrection of green values, with various initiatives both by a number of student organisations trying to raise the awareness on the environmental plight, and the University administration itself.

“It would be commendable if this wave of environmental consciousness is reflected by a more ethical and sustainable way of organising events and activities on campus, such as Freshers’ Week… companies promoting their products during Freshers’ Week should be prohibited from distributing promotional leaflets and should be encouraged to use other, less waste-generating methods.”

Greenhouse insisted that companies should put the environment and resource-use at the forefront of their day-to-day management and minimise the production of short-lived resources that are converted into waste very quickly.