SOLUTIONS - Green goes to school - Students spread the word, and eco-friendly dorms arrive on campus.

"Taking care of the planet is a global issue, but it starts with the individual," Raghav says, standing in a demonstration dorm room lined with carefully selected products: the energy-efficient, the biodegradable, the sustainable. Unlike the guys' room next door, there isn't an electricity-sucking appliance, off-gassing polyester beanbag chair or synthetic sheet in sight.

As the college-bound prepare to live away from home for the first time, campus crusaders for green living are trying to influence not only what is purchased in the back-to-school buying frenzy, but also how students go about their daily lives.

Raghav and others in the statewide Green Campus Program are pushing the benefits of vegetable-based laundry detergent, thermoelectric mini refrigerators and remanufactured printer ink cartridges. They're replacing inefficient incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent lamps. They're organizing residence hall competitions to see who can save the most water and energy, and they're promoting Earth Day rallies and Waste Awareness Week.

"We can't continue to have a hotel mentality where every light is left on because we're not paying the bills," says Raghav, 21, who graduated in June with a bachelor's degree in applied ecology and international studies and will start this fall in Yale's environmental management master's program.

No matter where students go to school, the reality is that many will be spending the next year in aging residence halls and university apartments that are as eco-savvy as the average SUV. Woe is the student looking for a little environmental consciousness, let alone style. The mission of Raghav and her cohorts: to inject a little green into every corner of their world.

Her team took a cue from UC Berkeley, where students outfitted their spaces with green products and give tours to incoming students.