Tag: Printing

Compositional Composting

By Lane Smith

Do What?

Photo of a recycling waste paper basket on an office floor
Image courtesy of Adobe Stock

Throughout the typical writing process, writers create numerous drafts and test prints designed to check for errors in grammar and formatting. This creates a massive problem in regards to paper waste. I decided to try to do something about this two years ago. So what did I do? I started composting.

The problem is what to do with all of this waste paper, and there are a multitude of things we can do with this waste. Many choose to toss their paper waste into the garbage, or recycle it. However, there is a third option, and that is to compost it. When I realized this a few years ago, I became passionate about composting and sustainable issues.

Low Maintenance

Landfills are overflowing and recycling centers are not popping up quickly enough, but why rely on someone else to recycle my waste? I can recycle right at home with composting. If you are not known as a person with a green thumb, don’t worry; you have a chance to be the person known to have a brown thumb. Composting is a low-maintenance activity and once it is set up it will more often than not give you great results.

Are you wondering why I am talking to a group of writers about the environment? It is primarily because writers produce massive amounts of paper waste every year. We all know about the local recycling center and pick up, and some of us actually use those systems. Composting will provide you with some of the richest soil you have ever seen, and it can be made right in your backyard. You never have to leave your house to take care of the earth and your garden.

Drafting Some Dirt

So, if you are getting the itch to start drafting some awesome dirt, check out some of these great articles and tutorials at Earth Easy. I should not forget to mention that UAB has new programs for sustainable futures. They have added over ninety classes regarding sustainability, and have developed both majors and minors for the subject. They are also encouraging professors to incorporate sustainability into the curriculum of any classroom, as talked about in the UAB Reporter, and even offer a stipend for participants in the workshop.

Being sustainable and writing about sustainable causes is becoming a very large part of the public rhetoric. Start composting your drafts and prints, and take part in making the future a greener place, one compost heap at a time.

Printing on UAB’s Campus

Printing is a crucial component of the professional writer’s process, but it is somehow one that gets overlooked quite often. Writers always remember spellcheck and page numbers, hyperlinks and proper file formatting, but printing ends up being an afterthought the morning of an assignment’s due date. Fortunately, UAB has printers in high and low places for students to use for various purposes.

UAB offers multiple locations for student printing on campus (yes there are more printers than those in Mervyn Sterne) and provides services outside of simple black and white printing. All of UAB’s printing services can be accessed with a quick swipe of your campus or One card and some handy Blazer Bucks or even a debit or credit card. Printing and photocopying can be done in black and white or color for varying costs.

Most notably for undergraduate students, the Mervyn H. Sterne library offers black and white as well as color printing on the first floor through the public computers spaced around the collaborative learning space. To print in black and white, it costs nine cents per page and fifty cents in color. Additionally the Educational Technology Service (ETS) in room 238 of the Education building offers printing services. For Honors College students in one of the Global and Community Leadership, Science and Technology, or Experiential Learners Scholars honors programs, the fifth floor honors space in Heritage Hall offers printing and copying in the computer lab for the same charge as in the Sterne library. Residents of Camp and Rast halls have access to in-building computer labs that offer free black and white printing if individual paper is provided.

For the graduate students who cannot fathom making the trek to Sterne, Lister Hill Library offers printing and copying also (undergraduates can use these also)! Black and white printers are on the first floor behind the HUB whereas color printers are in front of the elevators. Black and white printing and copying runs ten cents per page and color printing and copying costs seventy-five cents per page.

If printing on the good old eight and a half by eleven page is not what you need, UAB is ready to assist. The UAB Campus Printing and Mailing Center provides state of the art printing and mailing services. Large scale print jobs such as flyers, banners, posters—anything but newsprint— can be printed and delivered from the center. Projects have a two day turnaround time. The center also houses a USPS contracted post office.

Printing is obviously more than an afterthought on campus—for good reason as professional writing students rely heavily on printing for proofing drafts and finishing assignments. With so many options, scrambling for a printer the morning of a due date should be a thing of the past.