As students pack up to head home for a well-deserved holiday after the long school term and grueling examinations, Earthlink troopers come out to play! This semester, as part of our annual recycling drive, participants went across campus rapping their knuckles raw on the doors of more than ten halls to collect recyclables. Many enthusiastic hall residents had their recyclables ready for our collection, and many more looked relieved to get rid of their stacks of lecture notes and other studying materials.
Paper, among other things, is something that we cannot avoid using in school. As students living in halls, studying and other important activities take precedence, we place emphasis on convenience and that explains the high amount of disposables, such as plastic bottles and aluminum cans found in some of our trash bins.
However, convenience and doing our part for the environment are not mutually exclusive! There are some tricks we can use to have both! For instance, using papers that have only been printed on one side as rough paper can reduce usage of paper and also the money needed to buy extra paper. Moreover, recycling bins for paper, plastic and aluminum cans can be found in various locations around the school and halls. Dumping recyclables in those bins can now be as easy as trashing them in rubbish bins.
On the other hand, throwing away recyclables to the wrong bin or even throwing non-recyclables into recycling bins may make the whole bin unusable. For example, several bins that have been placed around halls for students to throw away their paper notes were found to be contaminated by coffee cups, sweet wrappers and other things that should have been thrown to the general waste bin! Contaminated recycling bins make the job of janitors to sort recyclables tougher than it already is. It only takes a cup of coffee or a container of milk spilt on the rest of the recyclables to deem everything in the recycling bin wasted due to contamination. Therefore, it is the responsibility of each and every one of us to treat our recycling bins with respect, so as not to thwart the efforts to save the environment.
The annual recycling drive is held at the end of every semester, typically over the course of a month. At the end of the period, Earthlink troopers would then comb campus for recyclables from hall residents, and also to ensure that items in the recycling bins are viable. We offer our sincerest thanks to all who have actively participated in the recycling drive, and who have made our mornings that much brighter with your kindness and care for the earth! See you again at the end of Semester 2! 🙂