• Reduce pesticide exposure
• Support environmentally friendly farming
• Align with animal welfare or sustainability values

• Soil health: Organic farming often improves soil structure and organic matter, which helps prevent erosion and supports long‑term productivity.
• Biodiversity: Fewer synthetic pesticides and fertilizers generally mean more insects, pollinators, and wildlife around farms.
• Water quality: Reduced use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers lowers the risk of nutrient runoff that can pollute rivers and lakes.
• Chemical exposure: Organic systems reduce environmental buildup of synthetic pesticides.

• Land use: Organic farming typically has lower yields, meaning it can require more land to produce the same amount of food.
• Climate impact: More land and mechanical weed control can increase greenhouse gas emissions per unit of food in some cases.
• Inputs still exist: Organic farms can still use approved pesticides and fertilizers—they’re just different types.

We’ve made it to the final day—nice work, everyone! Over the past few weeks, you’ve shown up, tried new habits, and made small changes that really do add up. That effort matters, and it’s been great to see our campus take this on together.

♻️ Recycle Right in Nebraska (NE)

• Newspapers, magazines, junk mail
• Office paper, paper bags
• Cardboard boxes (flattened), cereal/shoe boxes
  ✅ Clean & dry only

• Bottles, jugs, tubs, containers (#1–#5 are safest)
• Milk jugs, shampoo bottles, yogurt tubs
  ✅ Empty, clean, replace lid if possible

• Aluminum & steel cans
• Clean foil (balled up), metal lids

• Milk, juice, soup & broth cartons
  ✅ Rinse and empty

• Bottles & jars are usually DROP‑OFF ONLY, not curbside (check your city)
  
  

Think paper bags are always better than plastic? Not necessarily. Some life-cycle analyses have found that a paper bag may need to be reused multiple times, often more than four, to have a lower overall environmental impact than a single plastic bag.

Carbon offsets are booming, but many schemes are poorly monitored, overpromised, or even fraudulent. The idea that you can simply pay to erase your carbon footprint is a tempting eco‑myth. In many cases, offsetting does not deliver real, additional emissions reductions—it often shifts responsibility elsewhere or relies on credits that overstate their impact. The priority should be cutting emissions wherever possible. Start by focusing on high‑impact actions like reducing energy use, cutting unnecessary travel, and choosing lower‑carbon food options. Offsets should be used only for truly unavoidable emissions, and only through rigorously verified, reputable projects.

Eating more plants is one of the biggest ways you can help the planet. Research from the University of Oxford shows that moving toward a plant‑based diet can cut greenhouse gas emissions by up to 73 percent. That said, simply swapping meat for highly processed soy or pea‑protein burgers—often wrapped in layers of plastic and shipped from across the world—doesn’t always live up to the hype. Many of these products are heavily refined, take a lot of energy to make, and come with ingredient lists so long they barely resemble real food.

Organic cotton is often promoted as a greener alternative to conventional cotton, but the reality is more complex. Although it avoids certain harmful pesticides, organic cotton farming can require significantly more water—sometimes two to three times as much. Large-scale production may still contribute to soil depletion and can threaten local ecosystems through habitat loss. Ultimately, environmental impact depends more on farming practices than on certification labels alone. It’s a clear reminder that “organic” does not automatically mean sustainable.

It may seem controversial, but in some cases it is actually better to leave fluorescent lights on rather than turning them off multiple times throughout the day. A fluorescent light’s lifespan is largely determined by how many times it is switched on, and a significant portion of its energy use occurs during startup. As a result, if you plan to enter and exit a room repeatedly over the course of a day, leaving the lights on may be more efficient than turning them off each time you leave.

When it comes to cutlery, we should follow the same rules when ordering Asian takeout as we do with western food: avoid disposable items at any cost! Disposable chopsticks are responsible for tearing down 3.8 million trees in China alone. The solution to this is very simple: if you usually buy lots of Asian takeout, keep a set of reusable chopsticks with you. There are different kinds made of different materials — like metal, for example.