UCSD Sustainability hosted the annual Earth Day Fair in Price Center Plaza to celebrate sustainable practices and Earth Week last Wednesday. 

Groups and companies based on and off campus were invited to participate for free in the fair, including the Student Sustainability Collective, Sempra Energy, Tobacco Initiative and Engineers for a Sustainable World. 

Campus Sustainability Manager Sara McKinstry said she hopes to expand the fair next year.

“We invited both on- and off-campus groups to table about sustainability. We hope to make the fair bigger next year; our only constraint was space,” McKinstry said. “Many companies now understand that to survive, they have to be ecologically friendly and good social citizens.”

McKinstry explained that this year’s theme was a response to the drought California is experiencing. 

“Given the drought and our governor’s mandate to cut urban water usage by 25 percent, we focused strongly on water this year,” McKinstry said. “We did the #TritonsSaveH2O campaign to get people thinking about how they can conserve water and sharing how they do that to educate and inspire others.”

The Vice Chancellor for Resource Management and Planning’s office, Facilities Management and University Centers organized the effort to turn off decorative fountains across campus during Earth Week. McKinstry stated that the use of fountains on campus will be limited after Earth Week.

“We turned off decorative fountains as a visual reminder to people that we are in a major drought and need to do everything we can to conserve water,” McKinstry said. “Most of our fountains use recycled water, not drinkable water, so they reuse. But we still need to conserve, so we turned them off. Going forward, most fountains will only be on for limited maintenance use.”

Students can conserve water by taking shorter showers and reporting any faucet, shower or other utility leaks.

Additional reporting done by: Sherman Aline // Associate Design Editor