Local Aggie studies sustainable practices overseas
SANTA ROSA — Caleb Goins wants to help clean up America’s act.
The Texas A&M University senior spent about a month in Germany studying sustainable practices, and he found a country that knows how to conserve resources much better than people in the United States.
"They’re trying to change, they’re more green over there, there’s a lot more recycling," said Goins, 21, who was valedictorian of his graduating class at Santa Rosa High School in 2006. Goins, who is studying architecture and urban planning at Texas A&M, was in Germany from late May until the end of June with a group of students and an instructor.
Because the United States is "going green," he said, he and the other students wanted to learn how Germany was accomplishing this so that Americans would have a better idea of what to expect.
Sustainability, for Goins, means "the ability to keep on keeping on, without impeding on the ability of future generations to keep existing."
"Over there, it’s not economically feasible or even logical to buy six or seven televisions per household," he said." But as for us here in America, most of your bedrooms will have a TV. Over there it’s like, one TV and one computer (per house), and that’s it."
Garbage isn’t tossed into one can. Instead, different types of garbage and trash are placed in separate containers. Paper is picked up once a month, biodegradable materials are picked up another time, and plastic still another. If someone wants to get rid of a sofa or a television set, they fill out a card and request that it be removed by a disposal company.
Through those measures, Germany recycles about 70 percent of its waste.
"You have to do it or you are going to get fined," he said.
Goins and his fellow students had some time to travel at their leisure, too. While in Europe he visited the Eiffel Tower and the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, and traveled to Amsterdam. In Germany, he went to the Hofbrauhaus brewery, where Hitler is reported to have started the Nazi movement.
He also enjoyed his host family, which consisted of a British woman and her son.
"I was living in Bonn, which is the old capital, right before it went back to Berlin," he said. "It’s the birthplace of Beethoven. I went to the house where he was born and lived at for a little bit. He lived in a bunch of little houses in Bonn, but that’s the only one that’s remaining."
He looks forward to finishing his bachelor’s degree, pursuing his master’s in architecture, and then applying the lessons he learned in Germany as an urban planner, employing solar energy and possibly mass transit systems in his designs. However, he conceded that convincing Americans to rely more on public transportation and less on their own vehicles may be difficult. Probably about the only thing he didn’t like about his visit was not having a car.
"There’s going to be a lot of problems especially here in America," he said. "I noticed in Germany the houses are really really close together. They share walls with their neighbors. I mean, here in America almost you kind of need your car. Over there people don’t have their own cars usually, or at least not until your 30s."
