College Mall taking steps toward being environmentally friendly

Bloomington’s College Mall, a popular shopping destination for IU students, is taking steps toward greener operations.\nThe mall is cutting its hours for a recreational walking program as well as choosing environmentally friendly cleaning and maintenance materials.\nThe mall acts as the walking grounds for the Mall Pacers program, which was established in 1999 to provide a climate-controlled environment for recreational walking before business hours. As part of the effort toward environmental friendliness, the mall is reducing the hours during which this program will be offered. New hours will be enforced to cut back power usage during the slow hours.\n“Locally, we’re looking for ways that we can cut back on our impact,” said Dena Marietta, director of mall marketing.\nMarietta said even cutting a little every day can yield big changes.\n“It takes hundreds of kilowatt-hours to power all of our lights and our HVAC, and just an hour less use can make a huge difference,” she said.\nVarsity Contractors, the company that does cleaning and maintenance for College Mall and a large number of Simon-owned malls nationwide, is making a change as well. All cleaning and maintenance supplies it uses are now approved by the Green Seal, a mark of environmental responsibility for consumer and industrial products. The mall now uses trash bags, paper towels, toilet paper and other products that are made of post-consumer recycled materials. Varsity Contractors plans to be completely converted to Green Seal materials by April 1.\nAlthough the general consensus among IU shoppers regarding the changes seemed to be positive, opinions varied.\n“I feel like stores can change their hours if it’s good for the environment,” sophomore Eric Sommers said. “All good things take sacrifice.” \nWhile still approving the green efforts, some had the customers and the walkers in mind.\n“I don’t really think they should switch the times; it’s not fair to the customer,” freshman Nicole Varndell said.\nHowever, the majority of students, including junior Jessie Moore, responded with a simple, “I feel good about it.” \nDespite possible inconveniences for customers and walkers, the mall has received cooperation and encouragement from the public, Marietta said. By cutting out slow hours and using environmentally friendly products in daily tasks, College Mall is taking its first steps toward reducing impact, she said. \nAs far as future plans, Marietta said, “I can’t announce anything right now, but I think we’ll see some more changes in the future.”