The Conservation and Recycling
Efforts campaign within the Wisconsin Student Public Interest Research
Group will hold the annual “Trash Sort” campaign Friday in Library Mall
from 12 to 3:30 p.m.
Members of CARE will collect trash bags from several university
buildings, including residence halls, libraries, cafeterias, unions and
classrooms to sort out recyclable materials.
“Recycling is one of the best [things] that we can do to help out
the environment ... It’s a really simple step that makes a really big
difference,” WISPIRG Chair Tony Uhl said.
Trash Sort is CARE’s first campaign in a yearlong recycling initiative and is a part of a larger national effort.
“RecycleMania” will take place next semester as a 10-week
competition among colleges across the nation for the highest recycling
rates.
“Only 23 percent of water bottles are getting recycled out of all
the billions of water bottles out there,” CARE member Sarah Bartlett
said.
According to Devin Trezise, co-coordinator of CARE, Trash Sort
occurs twice a year and the majority of collected trash from last
semester was recyclable.
“The results were pretty surprising actually,” Trezise said. “We
calculated the weight of recyclables that were still on the way; it was
over 50 percent. Fifty-eight percent of the trash that we sorted was
either recyclable materials or [compost] materials.”
According to Trezise, many students are confused about what materials can be recycled.
Uhl said the group organized Trash Sort to educate students and
staff on recycling and to give them a visual of how much trash is
thrown away every day.
“Students can come take part and talk to us and learn what is
actually being thrown away and why we need to make sure we know what
can be recycled,” Uhl said.
Bartlett said the goal of CARE is to increase student awareness of
recycling and to implement new strategies on the UW-Madison campus and
throughout the Madison area.
“I think [recycling] is an easy step that we can do to help not only
our community, but also to help carbon emissions and to save some
money,” she said. “Overall, it’s just to make a greener Earth ... It’s
time to go green.”
