This February, Keene State College is a part of RecycleMania, a program encouraging students and community members to live sustainably.
“The college is participating in an eight-week nationwide challenge to see which campus can reduce, reuse and recycle the most waste,” sophomore eco-rep Matthew Bacon said.
According to the KSC RecycleMania page on the Keene State College website, “in addition to Keene State, nearly 525 schools, more than 4.4 million students and nearly one million faculty and staff will be participating in 47 states, the District of Columbia and Canada.”
To bolster support for the competition sponsored by Keep America Beautiful and the National Recycling Coalition, KSC peer educators, known as Eco-Reps, are holding multiple events on campus.
Students may have recently taken notice of these representatives in the Zorn Dining Commons, asking diners to dispose their food waste into blue recycling containers.
This is a food audit, according to Bacon, which are, “Designed to spread awareness as to how much food the collective student body lets go to waste in an all-you-can-eat cafeteria.”
Erin Duffy / Equinox Staff
There will also be a, “table in the student center the last week of March, and anyone who is affiliated with the college can bring their electronic waste to the booth in the student center to have their waste properly recycled,” Heather Greenwood, the recycling coordinator for KSC, said.
Greenwood mentioned that last year, the group collected roughly 8,000 pounds of electronic waste for recycling.
Every Monday, Eco-Reps and members of R.O.C.K.S. are hosting a table for students to sign up to pledge to do something eco-friendly each week.
“Every week that they sign up, they’re eligible for that weeks’ prize and at the end of it we’re giving away a free bike,” Greenwood said.
For the third year, Greenwood is also hosting an office cleanup competition with faculty over spring break. “It’s great opportunity for people to clean out their office, because we don’t always take the time to do that,” Greenwood stated.
Aside from this, she said, “Eco-Reps and R.O.C.K.S. members will be doing pledges two to three days a week in the Res [Residential] Halls.”
Some information collected shows the KSC community does not only choose to be environmentally friendly eight weeks out of the year.
There are always ways in which the school is taking steps to further environmental awareness.
According to the KSC website and also Mary Jensen, campus sustainability officer, “The TDS building earned LEED Platinum Certification by the U.S. Green Building Council and Green Building Certification Institute.”
“This designation was given to the building based on its energy efficiency and the materials used to build the structure,” as stated in the KSC website.
Jensen also said the water bottle refill stations that have made their way into each building over the course of the last year-and-a-half are also a way that KSC promotes sustainability.
“Every little thing counts,” Bacon said.
“Though some of what we do goes unnoticed, the more we can spread sustainability awareness through things like RecycleMania, the better,” Bacon said.
Zach Fournier can be contacted at zfournier@keene-equinox.com