The Woman With a Heart of Green: Kean University’s Dr. Allison Edgley’s Journey With Sustainability Encourages Students to Work Towards a Cleaner Future I Published: December 27

By: Courtney-Joy Breeden

Although the ideas of Sustainability and Climate Change have always been topics surfacing in and out of the mainstream media since the 1980s, it wasn’t until the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic that the act of truly being environmentally conscious became a permanent part of the lives of Gen Z adults and Millennials.

According to a study done by Pew Research, Gen Z and Millennials are more outspoken than older generations on topics surrounding Climate Change and Sustainability, a fact proven on Kean’s own campus with Communications Professor, Dr. Allison Edgely.

Earlier this year in July, Dr. Edgely was honored by the Lesniak Institute for her leadership and work in the community with the Green Visionary Award.

“I had a student in my community building class who went on to work for the Lesniak Institute… and she had reached out to me because she knew from having me in class that I was recycling and was really green conscious and she said they started to create that as a focus for themselves,” said Dr. Edgely as she explained the events leading up to receiving the award. “I wound up going to the STEM building, we had an interview and from there, I thought that might be it right?”

That wasn’t it, in the month following the interview —June—, she would be notified of the upcoming gala and that she would be honored along with two other people who are well recognized in their own communities.

As mentioned, Dr. Edgely has always been proficient in using her voice and putting in the work for things she’s passionate about whether it be donating to charity, recycling denim or informing students on Environmental Justice. But how exactly did it all start for her?

“It was a steady progression of me reading news reports, seeing what was going on, you know, just seeing spaces that I was in like green spaces that I was in that were littered and weren’t being cleaned up,” she said. Then I come into the classroom and I see a lot of things being wasted, you know, food waste, garbage not being in the right place.”

She even recalls visiting a marina near a friend’s home and seeing cigarette butts in the water systems.

“They have not yet to bring a receptacle in for them to put their butts, which I think is wild,” She adds.

Dr. Edgely states that her arrival to hands-on work was gradual and that the gloves and tools didn’t come til a bit later.

“I think I got much stronger while I was at Kean, I definitely didn’t start you know with collecting snack wrappers and everything but I was always looking, I was always donating but then you know, you read and learn that donations aren’t always the most effective, right?” She said, “So I just started going online, that was another part of it, research was really kind of a big you know catapult for me.”

She says that reading and researching is what motivated her to join different environmentally conscious programs like Terracycle, an initiative dedicated to creating recyclable boxes where people can recycle their waste. This practice then led her to find the Sustainability Task Force on campus led by faculty from the Wellness Center and Science Department.

“On campus, when I found out there was a Sustainability Task Force, I immediately jumped on it because I really wanted to be a part of the conversation, but also see what I didn’t know, the things I wasn’t aware of that we were doing so I could help facilitate anything more effectively,” said Dr. Edgely.

Edgely explained that the Sustainability Task Force has taken pounds of plastics from around campus and successfully recycled them at a center in Scotch Plains, NJ. She has also gotten other faculty members from her own department to be a part of the recycling initiative by reminding them to hand her any plastic or waste. 

“I don’t really have any garbage in my garbage can… My coworker yesterday bought me five different items. Two of them went into this candy and snack wrapper [Terracycle box], one of them went into the plastics because it was stretchy and the other one is now in my eco-brick,” She stated.

She has almost five eco-bricks, which are recyclable average-sized water bottles stuffed with plastic wrappers that aren’t recyclable through the Scotch Plains recycling location and aren’t considered to be a candy wrapper by Terracycle,

“I have been making these with my Environmental Communication class and we’re going to weigh them…and maybe I’ll use them to decorate the garden.”

As Dr. Edgely speaks of her own efforts and what it took to become confident in committing to a Sustainable lifestyle she urges students to get involved on campus and talks more about the different things she discusses with her Environmental Communications class.

“One of the areas they really looked at were the dorms… there are students, they live here, right? This is like their home but yet they don’t have all of the same resources. They don’t have proper recycling receptacles for them and what they found in their survey they did, is that some of the students they’re like,.. if I have to go out a hall and down to the outside, I’m not going to recycle.” She explained. “So they’re looking at it saying what are the little things we can do to make a large impact.

Dr. Edgely encourages conversations like these and wants students to become more aware of the programs working on campus and in their own communities to spread the practices of Sustainability. 

When asked about the importance of Climate Change and Sustainability advocacy regarding the recent election, Dr. Edgely deemed it exceptionally important.

“The more they [college students] get more involved the more they then learn how to support officials that actually help the environment versus pulling us out of the agreements that are for sustainability, in 2020 the Trump administration reduced money for the EPA which eliminated programs focused on Environmental Justice,” Edgely explained. 

Dr. Edgely also stresses the act of researching and staying updated on the news. The concept of Sustainability is more than recycling and cleaning beaches, a notion made clear through the way she speaks on the topic of Environmental Justice, a term that addresses the concept of Environmental Racism, a systemic ideal that affects communities of color and a term that has recently entered the mainstream discussion on Climate Change and Politics. 

“I think research and you know, awareness and education obviously is kind of the start…join a group on campus… volunteer for a clean up,” she concluded.

As she speaks, Dr. Edgely reminds people of the process of cause and effect because that’s what fighting for and working toward something is all about. Every time a person educates themself and actively works for what they desire, something shifts, even if the action is as small as taking care of a plant.

“I just have some of my plants, I’m not really the one with a green thumb but I like to say I have a green heart,” stated Dr. Edgely. 

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