Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, November 21, 1995 TAG: 9511210051
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: LESLEY HOWARD SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Through his student organization, Taking Responsibility for Earth and Environment, Blanchard has been instrumental in getting Virginia Tech to change its recycling contractor.
He also helped to focus community attention two years ago on Tech's plans for a new boiler at its power plant. On the side, he's organized an environmental conference and held protests for Leonard Peltier,an American Indian activist who many believe was unjustly jailed after a shootout in South Dakota.
"I see college as a chance to get a basis of knowledge in activism," Blanchard said recently.
Blanchard spent his childhood vacations in the West. His parents, both educators, took him to a number of Indian reservations.
Blanchard traces some of his sense of right and wrong to those visits, and seeing environmental problems on the reservations.
As a freshman at Virginia Tech, Blanchard noticed there were no recycling boxes in the dorms. He and some friends made boxes, put four on each floor of the dorms, and when they were full, carried them to Tech's recycling bins.
Soon, he began working with Larry Bechtel, Tech's recycling coordinator and solid waste manager. By the end of the fall semester of 1993, the school was emptying the recycling boxes
Also during the fall semester, Earl heard about Virginia Tech's plan to expand its boiler operations. When he returned from winter break, he learned that the deadline for commenting on the project was in three days.
Blanchard and others were concerned about pollution from the boiler and wanted the university to implement more emissions controls..
"I called some of my friends ... and we went door-to-door in the dorms and collected 400 signatures against the boiler."
The response, coupled with others, led the Department of Environmental Quality to extend the comment period for two weeks.
In December 1994, the DEQ approved Tech's plan for the boiler, which is required to meet a number of environmental standards. Since then, designs on the boiler and pollution control equipment have been completed. Tech now is in the process of accepting bids for the project
One day in his sophomore year, he and several friends were sitting around talking about trash. "We went to a trash can on campus outside that didn't have a recycling bin next to it and dumped the trash out and started separating the recyclables from the trash. It was almost 75 percent recyclables. We took it to Larry Bechtel's office and told him that this was just one trash can."
Bechtel remembers this incident well. "It was an odd moment for me," he recalls. "I had started as Tech's recycling coordinator out of a sense of frustration myself, and yet when Earl confronted me with the trash I found myself giving a sort of typical administrative, institutional answer."
He told Blanchard that no, the university couldn't put recycling containers next to all of the trash cans on campus - there just wasn't money available to do that, much less the staff.
The school did put out a recycling bin for a time, but it got filled with just as much trash as recyclables, so the idea was scrapped.
Next, Blanchard drew the university's focus to its recycling contractor. He had researched the company, Waste Management Inc., and learned that Greenpeace had filed complaints against the company internationally, though no complaints had been filed against the company locally.
When the recycling contract came up for review, Blanchard met with Bechtel and the Sierra Club's Shireen Parsons.
"We talked to Larry about the importance of not just the bottom line financially but the bottom line environmentally," Blanchard said.
Over the summer of 1994, Blanchard was a whitewater raft guide, leaving the project in Bechtel's hands.
"Larry told TREE at the end of the spring semester that the recycling contract would be opened for bids," Blanchard said. A board looked at service as well as who had the lowest bid.
Bob's Refuse, a local company that also works for Blacksburg, won on both counts.
Bechtel credits Blanchard and TREE with getting the university to reopen the contract and to evaluate the bids on more than just price.
Bob's Refuse "has a great response time," Bechtel said. "They'll be on the campus within an hour of our asking them to be."
Tech wouldn't havemade a number of environmental inroads without Blanchard, Parsons said.
Asked what he thinks he'll do in the future, Blanchardhesitates. "I guess just keep doing what I'm doing."
Bechtel believes Blanchard will continue to be a leader "if he continues to grow in his understanding of the complexity of the world - and refuses to let that complexity become a justification for inaction. He's got a lot more to say."
by CNB