![\"\"](\"http:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/Mount-Trashmore-025.jpg\" "\\"Mount")
<\/a>After donning disposable bio-hazard suits and while battling stiff breezes, more than 30 students and a few faculty and staff\u00a0dove into one day\u2019s worth of trash collected by Facilities Services. Two large separate trash piles were deposited on El Pomar Plaza, one\u00a0 from student housing, the rest from other campus buildings. Soon, they were pawing through discards that ranged from wilted Valentine\u2019s Day flowers to empty soda cans, a peppermint schnapps bottle and even a black and white film canister or two.<\/p>\nThe discoveries often prompted questions as the students learned that even trash has a value.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat do you think, should we play it?\u201d a volunteer asked Kevin Gilford, office manager, Office of Sustainability, of the homemade mix CD she found.<\/p>\n
The efforts were part of an eight-week national competition on college campuses, RecycleMania, to encourage students, faculty and staff to recycle. According to Linda Kogan, director, Office of Sustainability, UCCS had a 27 percent recycling rate last year. The office hopes to increase recycling through education and introduction of the topic in Freshman Orientation.<\/p>\n For three hours Wednesday, campus community members joined Gilford and Kogan in the experiment and to see if UCCS had improved on last year\u2019s efforts where more than 50 percent of trash could have been recycled.<\/p>\n Preliminary results indicate that roughly 35 percent of the trash could have been recycled from this year\u2019s event, Kogan said. Items not being recycled include plastic water bottles, aluminum cans, and all forms of paper.<\/p>\n \u201cRecycling is one of the easiest choices that an individual can make to reduce our environmental impact. Trash in a landfill creates methane which is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Recycling contributes to lowering our carbon footprint.\u201dKogan said,<\/p>\n To learn more about what can be recycled at UCCS and how to reduce your environmental impact, visit www.uccs.edu\/sustain<\/a>.<\/p>\n — Photos by Tom Hutton and Kevin Gilford<\/em><\/p>\n<\/a>Gilford opted to pass on the music, instead encouraging the volunteer to add the CD case to the plastics recycle bin where it joined an assortment of soda bottles, coffee cup lids and other materials easily recycled and diverted from a waste stream that fills acres of landfills every year.<\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"