Dear Editor,
RecycleMania – Get in the game! Stony Brook University is entering RecycleMania, a national competition that runs from January 28 until April 7. For those ten weeks, we will be competing with nearly one hundred and fifty other universities and colleges to see who can collect the greatest amount of recyclables. During RecycleMania, you will see outreach coordinators from the Recycling Department all over campus, encouraging everyone to recycle. You might even be “Caught Green-Handed” – if we catch you recycling, you can be entered to win an iPod at EarthStock in April!
Currently, Stony Brook University has a 32% recycling rate. In order to do well in RecycleMania, we’re going to have to do a lot better than that. Last year, Cal State San Marcos won the recycling rate competition with over 50% of its waste recycled! So many of our recyclables go into the trash, and we need to start diverting them so that they can be recycled. Recycling is just as easy as taking out your garbage.
To make recycling even more convenient, we are implementing mixed paper recycling in campus residences during this Spring semester. Recycling your paper will really help our recycling rate shoot up, and now, recycling paper in your room, suite, or apartment is very easy. Separate your paper from your other recyclables and take it to the end of your hall, where you will see new recycling slim jims for your paper recycling (they will have special blue lids for paper). If you live in a campus apartment, you will receive another bin in your apartment for paper, and you will take the paper outside to the paper recycling bins near the dumpsters.
Recycling is very beneficial for us and our campus. We produce a lot of trash, and we cannot fill up landfills forever without consequences for our environment and our community. Recycling decreases pollution, conserves resources, and saves us money that would otherwise be spent on converting virgin materials into products.
RecycleMania gives us a chance to improve our world and to have fun competing against other universities. We deserve to win RecycleMania as much as any other school. All that you need to do, wonderful Stony Brook student, is recycle. If you have never recycled before, now is the time to start. Recycle everything you can! Recycle paper and soda bottles and beer cans (making sure you rinse and flatten those bottles and cans since dirty recycling won’t help us). Encourage your friends to recycle those old tests and junk mail. Annoy your roommates when you see them throwing plastic bottles in the trash. Toss your old clothes and shoes in a Goodwill bin to be given to charity or recycled. Think about all the recyclables you throw away each day and put them in a blue bin instead.
For more information about RecycleMania, please visit http://ws.cc.stonybrook. edu/centralservices/recycling/. You can help Stony Brook University do well in RecycleMania, so get in the game!
Jennifer Myatt
Senior Outreach Coordinator
Department of Recycling ‘ Resource Management