Under the theme ‘End Plastic Pollution’, members of the RHU Sustainability Campus Initiative celebrated the 2018 Earth Day with RHU community on April 27, 2018. Professor Salma Talhouk, founding Chair of the AUB Botanic Garden Committee, delivered a presentation entitled "Ancillary Botanic Gardens: Local botanic gardens for education and outreach" at 11:00 a.m. in RHU theatre. A tree planting activity in the RHU green area followed the presentation.
Professor Talhouk is the founding Director of AUB’s Nature Conservation Center; she has served as the Chairperson of the Department of Landscape Design and Ecosystem Management and as the Associate Dean of the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences.
Together with Professor Talhouk, RHU will be announcing RHU premises as Ancillary Botanic Garden. Speciation and labeling of all the trees/shrubs planted in RHU grounds will be completed and future tours for such garden will be organized for the community.
It is worth noting that an estimated 8.3 billion tons of virgin plastic has been produced to date. More than 5.0 billion tons of plastic waste has accumulated in landfills and the natural environment.