Climate & Nature...

Eww, there's trash everywhere, and somebody's gotta clean it up. Ever wanted to organize a group of people to do just that? I've done it at Ithaca College (IC) and many others have done the same. The IC Environmental Society has Green Teams who clean up after home football games and keep the good stuff (free unopened beer, sweatshirts, etc) recycle what we can, and throw out the rest. Even a group of high school students cleaned up their local park in New Haven recently and younger kids did it last year for Earth Day.

Here's 8 easy steps to get on your way to cleaning up your campus/park/area:

1. Find 5-10 loyal friends/sustainable companions to take on this endeavor.
2. Pick a day and time that works for all of you.
3. Decide where exactly on your campus you want to focus on for this first clean up day...where's the trash?
4. Create advertisements to recruit extra volunteers for the clean-up day. Make sure there's contact info for RSVPing, the date and time for the day, and a meeting place that everyone would know about.
5. Compile the list of volunteers.
6. Buy enough gloves, garbage bags, and maybe even plastic body suits if you want, for everyone for the clean day. You can ask departments on your campus or student organizations for money for these kinds of purchases easily. (If you really need help, with that, let me know!)
7. Send out a reminder email or phone call to every volunteer the day before the big day.
8. CLEAN UP! And maybe even start a group with all these extra people that wants to do this every week/month.