Disclaimer: American Conservation Coalition president Samuel Krakower is a former Diamondback opinion columnist.
The University of Maryland RHA held a cleanup Saturday to pick up tennis balls behind the tennis courts next to Eppley Recreation Center, where a population of beavers is located.
The event was held in collaboration with this university’s Sustainable Ocean Alliance and American Conservation Coalition chapters. RHA president and senior information science and philosophy, politics and economics major Emily Shoemaker said she first heard about the discarded tennis balls behind the courts last year.
“After [Sustainable Ocean Alliance] did some asking around this year, they said that they think what’s happening is people are taking the old balls that are no longer bouncy, or they pop or they’re otherwise disfigured, and they just chuck them over the fence,” Shoemaker said. “That, or people are accidentally thwacking them over.”
The students picked up 51 pounds of trash from the area, according to RHA’s sustainability coordinator Claire Bushar.
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“RHA is all about supporting our students on campus, and making sure that we, as a campus, are making good choices to care for the environment around us is always a priority,” the sophomore bioengineering major said.
This university’s American Conservation Coalition branch promotes sustainability efforts on campus, and has held cleanups near Eppley in the past, according to president Samuel Krakower. Krakower emphasized the importance of the beaver dam cleanup initiative.
“Obviously, tennis [is a] very popular sport,” the senior history major said. “We want to make sure that this human hobby and sport doesn’t hurt the wildlife too much in the area around it.”
Krakower noted that athletics can be sustainable, and students can promote this by not leaving tennis balls or other equipment in areas where it shouldn’t be.
Junior animal sciences major Chloe Burfeindt, a Sustainable Ocean Alliance representative, said it’s important for students to be aware of the impacts their actions could have on the environment.
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“I know especially when you play tennis, it’s easy to accidentally hit it over the fence,” she said. “Avoid doing that as much as possible, just to think about the effect that it will have on the environment.”
Sustainable Ocean Alliance vice president Anna Christie said the alliance holds weekly cleanups on campus and advocates for various sustainable policy initiatives.
She hopes students are more thoughtful about their everyday habits to help the environment.
“That’s our goal, with our normal cleanups too, is just hoping that people will see it and rethink their decisions of littering when they see how much litter there actually is that we collect every single week,” said the junior environmental science and policy major.
Bushar added that she hopes RHA is able to reach a wider audience through this event and continue promoting sustainability causes across campus. She explained the association is speaking with RecWell about implementing a more permanent recycling program.
“We are very proud of this initiative,” she said. “Even with just this initiative alone, it’s already been an accomplished year.”
