Students Recycle and Reduce Garbage: Take It Or Leave It

akronheim — Thu, 15 May 2008 00:00:00 -0400

The Ithaca College Environmental Society (ICES) found it absurd during move-out time at the end of the academic year when the amount and quality of garbage sky rocketted. They found clothes, mini fridges, hangers, food, microwaves, working electronics, computers, you name it, they found it in the dumpsters at school.

So, they started Take It Or Leave It (TIOLI). They put large bins in every dorm room where students can leave things worth donating or selling. ICES members go around campus, pick up the stuff they want for themselves, donate food and clothes, and then store the school/dorm room supplies to sell at the beginning of nxt year.

It really reduces the waste from the campus at that time of year; a full tractor trailor gets used for sorting the stuff. Plus, you get free stuff for helping out, and it raises between $500-$1000 for the club that year. When I ived in the Boston University dorm in D.C. while interning for Greenpeace's Project Hot Seat, there was a collection for similar things in the basement. I took a purse and some noodles from down there. Everyone donated and much less waste was thrown out than could have been.

It is easy to get people to put their stuff in a different place when it is advertised. It's also easy to collect, take what you want, and donate and sell the rest. It is am amazing way to divert some stuff out of the waste stream into the re-use system and I think it should be implemented at every residential college/university. It just makes sense. And that picture is of me doing it freshmen year...I found a sweet halloween costume!

Want to find out more about recycling?

Recycling Tips: Did You Know You Cannot Recycle Messy Pizza Boxes?

The Benefits of Recycling: Let’s Talk Trash

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Top 10 Recycling Resources

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The Benefits of Recycling Cardboard

The Art of Garbage

Reduce, Reuse… FREECYCLE

Recycle Those Electronics!

Back to Basics—RRR

Picking Up Garbage TVs and Recycling as Art

Knight Rider Recycled—Reborn With Green Twist!

Recycling Your Garbage: Where Does it All Go?

There's More Than One Way to Hug a Tree

jchatraw — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 01:00:00 -0400

So, you've failed in your bid for presidency--what do you do next? Become a crusader for the environment, of course. Oh, wait. Did you think I meant Al Gore? If so, you'd be inconveniently wrong. I'm talking about the most recent Democratic presidental nominee, John Kerry.

John Kerry and his wife Teresa Heinz Kerry collaborated on This Moment on Earth, which is equal parts inspiration, instruction, and history lesson.

Here's a green nugget from the book where John Kerry relates his perspective about the issue of clean lakes and rivers in America:

"The threats to our waters are nothing new; this is news we began hearing decades ago. But we have not heeded it. In the late 1960s, just as I was returning from service in Vietnam, the health of the nation's inland waters had reached a critical low. I'll never forget picking up the newspaper one day in June 1969 and seeing the stark photographs of Cleveland's Cuyahoga River on fire. The flames reached five stories high, and a large plume of black, dirty smoke wrapped the sky in darkness. In shock and disbelief, I—like many other Americans—learned that the river was so polluted that it had literally caught on fire. It was later reported that the fire had started from a spark that had landed on oil and debris floating on the waters of the Cuyahoga from a railcar crossing above it. Two years later, the problem persisted. In 1971, I traveled to Cleveland, Ohio, and as I approached the Cuyahoga, which snakes through the city before emptying into Lake Eerie, I could see the river smoldering. The oil and debris littering the river water remained, and the river still periodically lit up. It was an unnatural as it was unbelievable.

The images of the Cuyahoga River fire quickly became a symbol of the growing crisis of urban pollution. I couldn't help but wonder: How had it come to this?"

Want to learn more about Eco-Politics?

Check Out Obama’s Global Warming Plan

See What McCain Will Do About Climate Change

Hillary Clinton on the Environment

New Report: Doubts Grow About Global Warming

Top 10 Signs You’re Not Running a Green Campaign

Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall… Who’s the Greenest President of Them All?

environmentalism

Students Recycle and Reduce Garbage: Take It Or Leave It

There's More Than One Way to Hug a Tree