 "Photo:")
 "Photo:")
Students from Amy Cunningham's Issues in Environmental Science class and members of the Students for Environmental Outreach Club visited Zilker Park, Barton Springs, Café de Luz, North Austin's Waste Management Site and Waste Management's Landfill on April 24 for the Taste the Waste Reunion Tour.
The first stop was at Zilker Botanical Garden.
"The limestone here [at Hartman Prehistoric Garden] is 110 million years old. Eight years ago, the rock was flat. You used to be able to see dinosaur tracks. It is important for the Environmental Science Class to have a sense of time. Species go extinct," said faculty adviser Amy Cunningham.
Green Garden, a garden that focuses on the importance of having native plants, was also a stop in the Botanical Garden.
"Planting something that comes from somewhere else, invasive planting, is not good for the environment. It doesn't support native wildlife. Invasive species is a huge problem in the global world," said Cunningham.
"I really enjoyed the Botanical Gardens. I had been wanting to go, but I hadn't. I was pretty impressed," Jason Mathis, graphic design major, said.
Next on the agenda was a stop at Barton Springs. The plight of the springs was addressed.
For lunch, students stopped at Café de Luz, a vegan and macrobiotic restaurant. Located on an old meatpacking site of the seventies, the restaurant emphasizes a return to healthy food and balance.
"This place has been here for 18 years. There is a huge science experiment going on with GMO's (Genetically Modified Organisms) right now. There is so much going on. Anything that is basically unhealthy we refrain from. With natural biotic, it's all about balance. The best place to get food is from [the] local farmers' market," John Schwarzschild, board member of the restaurant, said.
"That we came here is awesome because this is the first time I have been to [Casa de Luz], and I have always wanted to," Scott Pietert, Environmental Science major, said.
After eating, students visited the Waste Management site where they were given a tour by Paul George, the operations and management supervisor. Despite being a water treatment waste management site, pains are taken to insure that the odor of feces is not obvious by building a large areas of the facilities underground.
"This is probably recycling and reuse in it's purest form. We need to really realize what our waste stream is. It's pretty high per individual," George said.
"I thought it was pretty nasty [all the waste]. I thought it was pretty interesting how they divided the river from north to south. I found it interesting how many condoms were in the initial filtration. People have this idea that they should do that [flush condoms down the toilet]," Ray Montez, environmental science major, said.
The last stop of the Taste the Waste trip was Austin's Waste Management Landfill. In Central Texas, the per person capita amount of garbage is nine pounds per day.
The landfill receives about 2,000 tons of garbage a day.
Be the first to comment on this article!