UNL is in the midst of Recyclemania, a friendly nationwide contest among universities to promote the habit of recycling. SNR has contributed to the recycling totals in previous years and is continuing to do so this year.
During the week of March 12, Hardin Hall will make an extra effort to boost Recyclemania’s office paper numbers. With the assistance of Sustain UNL and ASUN, extra recycling bins labeled “Office Paper” will be place throughout Hardin Hall on March 9. When these are full, volunteers will wheel them to the loading dock for pick up on March 16.
In particular, faculty and staff are encouraged to use this chance to clean their shelves of journals, files and notes they no longer need or use. Dave Wedin estimates that his 60-year run of the journal Ecology weighs over 600 pounds. Now that scientific papers are almost all available electronically, should you keep your old academic journals, donate them, or recycle them? There is no easy answer for that question, but increasingly, recycling might be the best answer.
More details on Hardin Hall’s “Clean Your Shelves!” office paper recycling campaign will come out next week. In the meantime, please take a look at your shelves and file cabinets.
Last year on a weekly average, SNR recycled 457 pounds of paper and 130 pounds of plastic. This year the weekly average is only 391 pounds of paper and 68 pounds of plastic.
Let’s increase those numbers for the Recyclemania competition which runs through the end of March. Let’s also get into the habit of recycling. SNR has contracted with Star City Recycling for our collection. It is single stream – no sorting for us. They take paper, plastics, glass, aluminum, and tin. The SNR recyclers will do extra collections through the rest of the competition to help gather the extra items. Also, you may take items directly to the loading dock and put them in the recycling containers there.
So as you are getting ready to do some spring cleaning remember to do some spring recycling!
-- Karen Jensen, SNR
More details at: http://newsroom.unl.edu/announce/todayatunl/990/5839