What does it take to show Elon students they may be throwing into the trash items that could be recycled? Try tearing open black garbage bags outside the Moseley Center. Members of the university’s Green Team and Sierra Club did just that Wednesday as one of several activities scheduled for Earth Week 2009.
A half dozen students spilled contents of more than 20 garbage bags onto tarps that had been stretched across the West Lawn of Moseley in an attempt to demonstrate how much material arrives in landfills when it could have been reused or recycled.
Cardboard pizza boxes. Aluminum cans. Plastic bottles. Brown paper bags. It was all there to see on a blustery Earth Day.
Four students wore full body bio-hazard suits, and all wore latex gloves as they sifted through foam food containers, crumpled papers, discarded clothing – even a Bose stereo speaker which, one participant admitted, may be broken.
“It looks like someone’s recruitment didn’t go so well!” Rachel Shain, a junior biology major and co-president of Sierra Club, exclaimed as she held up a T-shirt promoting spring 2009 Rush for sororities on campus. A plastic pitcher then caught her eye. “Oh my God! A water filter? Really? The point of this is to use it over and over. Ridiculous…”
The team even set aside a second sorority T-shirt and a pair of discarded jeans that, to the casual eye, at least, appeared to have no damage. They’ll both be washed and donated to a local charity.
“I’m trying to make up for my bad karma with recycling,” joked junior physics major Brice McHale, who said he was recently hired by the SGA as a community service liaison and was one of the students wading through the trash. “I wanted to check out some of the Earth Day events and asked if they needed help.”
The only hitch encountered by organizers was Mother Nature herself. A strong wind swept plastic bags and discarded napkins away from the trash site, often leading volunteers to chase the debris.
Organizers estimated that about one third of the total debris was recyleable.