Is Our Children Greening?

Students and colleges starting to go green

It's school time again, and you know what that means: pencils, books, teachers' dirty looks, and ambitious eco-minded students. Thanks to the influence of today's yoots -- a generation accustomed to sorting their trash and hyper-aware of global warming -- schools across the country are greening up education. California's Green Campus Program introduces coeds to energy-efficient mini-fridges, recycled ink cartridges, and veggie-based laundry detergent; the program set up a dorm room at University of California-Irvine with eco-products buyable within a 10-minute bike ride from campus. Residence halls are popping up equipped with green touches from low-flow showerheads to garden rooftops to motion detectors that turn off lights in unoccupied rooms. Says GCP's Shyla Raghav, who seems much more mature than we were in college: "We can't continue to have a hotel mentality where every light is left on because we're not paying the bills."