Earth Week to feature alumnus

The CSB+SJU Sustainability Office, the environmental science department and the Climate Justice Club are organizing a series of events throughout the 2025 Earth Week.

The CSB+SJU Earth week coordinating team has dubbed this year’s Earth Week theme “sustaining the momentum.” SJU senior Nick Mertens spoke about the thought process behind the development of this theme.

“That’s the theme for this year; it’s how can we create a sustainable future in so many different facets of what our unique campuses have to offer,” Mertens said.

The Sustainability Office is focusing on bringing sustainability into as many intersections as possible, including collaborative events with the education department, the Climate Justice Club, the writing center, College Democrats, the Indigenous Student Association (ISA) and others throughout the week. Kyle Rauch, the sustainability program manager and staff supervisor, said they are especially thrilled to welcome Zach Fritz ‘19 to campus to speak on his recent canoeing endeavor.

“[I knew] Zach as a student, and he worked for the Outdoor Leadership Center (OLC) and lead canoe programs for us. It would be cool to hear how he’s continued to do these pretty incredible adventures. He’s also become a really strong outdoor leader and has done some cool things with Le Voyager.” Rauch said.

Fritz will give his keynote “The Route Less Paddled” on Tuesday and will talk about how he and one other Minnesotan successfully paddled from Minnesota to the Arctic Circle. According to the Star Tribune, the men began their journey on May 6, 2024, paddling the 2,700 miles through Canada to King William Island in the Arctic Ocean. It took them 105 days, and they reached their destination on August 19, 2024. Previously, Fritz led canoe trips through the Les Voyagers organization, but since his arctic trip he has been on the speaking circuit.

This event is one of many in the upcoming week designed to encourage CSB+SJU students to be environmentally conscious. CSB sophomore Abby Robinson spoke about the growing concern for the environment and the institution’s operations.

“The forefront of the Sustainability Office’s mind is recycling,” Robinson said. “As an institution, we are debating taking away recycling bins as a whole and just throwing everything in the trash because we are getting fined so much from contamination fees. So that’s why we’re trying to push people to learn how to recycle right… so that’s one of the biggest goals right now that I think that students should be aware of.”

Contamination fees occur when there is trash and nonrecyclables mixed in with recycling. To combat this growing issue, signs are displayed above every public trash can and recycling bin on campus, so students can refer to them when disposing of any refuse.

Kyle Rauch urged students to find ways to keep environmental momentum going forward.

“There are actionable steps, even when it feels like, man, we’re losing some of these things, right? And it can be pretty demoralizing at times, for lots of different reasons, but there is motivation. There is optimism there,” Rauch said.