The environmental activists of Penn State are finding themselves in the same predicament. After more than a year of protests and meetings, students now have the option of not using the environment-unfriendly, formerly yellow separator sheets in the computer labs.

But on the heels of this victory, the Center for Academic Computing (CAC) said the number of white sheets used in the labs increased by 400,000 last semester.

After spending so much time focusing on the yellow paper sandwiching the students' print jobs, Penn State students and CAC ignored the excessive print jobs in between.

If the Penn State community wants to reduce the weight it is placing on the environment, it needs to concentrate on what is between the separator sheets. And like most weight-loss programs, students need to take control themselves.

They can start printing on both sides, not printing multiple drafts of papers and projects, online class notes, other information from the Internet and long e-mail messages.

Faculty members can also take part in this weight-loss program by accepting more assignments through e-mail and papers that are printed on both sides.

While each of these steps may seem small, if every student and faculty member adopts these practices, this grassroots protest can succeed once again.

Eliminating the mandatory separator sheets shows that persistent student protest can be successful at this university, or at least when dealing with CAC. If students put as much time and effort into trying to reduce the number of white sheets used as they did reducing the number of separator sheets, they can achieve their goal.