The new testing material alternative is made from 100 percent recycled material and costs only three cents more than the regular blue books. Soon green books will be at equal price with the current option.
“The Bookstore here at Davis said it’s something that was talked about, but never really looked into,” said ASUCD Senator Anni Kimball, who spearheaded the effort to get green books into the Bookstore.
During Kimball’s election campaign for senator she was asked by a UC Davis transfer student from Sonoma State University to look into the green option that was available at Sonoma. Kimball contacted Sonoma State and UC Berkeley to see how they had switched to green books.
“The bookstore at Berkeley was really helpful, they actually sent us 100 green book samples,” Kimball said.
After getting support from the UC Davis Bookstore, Kimball went to see how students and professors would react to the new product.
“We started circulating a petition for green books and within a couple weeks we got over 1,000 signatures,” Kimball said. “In addition to the student signatures we also got signatures from 30 professors. I didn’t think it would be so easy.”
ASUCD Environmental Policy and Planning Commission Chair Margaret Link was able to use ASUCD resources to help with the polling.
“I think it’s so important to give students the option to make sustainable choices,” Link said . “It introduces students to hopefully what becomes a lifelong habit of picking the green option.”
General Merchandise Manager for the UC Davis Bookstore Jean Aguirre was supportive of Kimball’s idea from the very beginning.
“We’re always open to anything green,” Aguirre said.
In addition to green books the UC Davis Bookstore sells environmentally friendly notebooks, note cards and pens. The Bookstore also launched the “Have some SWAG, bring your own BAG” campaign in January, which enacted a 25 cent fee for each plastic bag used. Instead of using plastic bags, students are encouraged to bring their own bags, or purchase a re-usable bag from the Bookstore for 75 cents.
“I think that it’s sometimes not feasible to ask students to make big changes, but these little changes are affordable and in the end can yield big results,” Kimball said.
MAX GARRITY RUSSER can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.
As long as Blue Books remain an option and Green Books stabilize at current BB prices, it isn’t an additional cost. Otherwise I concur with you Snorlax. Tax elsewhere.
Just another cost on normal students in the name of the environment. -___-