Students may be recycling the wrong way and don’t even know it, according to Associated Students Inc.’s new recycling campaign, Drink, Dunk, Done.
The new campaign was created to promote proper recycling methods by clearing up recycling-related misconceptions — such as that bottles can be recycled with their caps on — and raise awareness about the increased number of recycling containers on campus, according to Lee Johnson, ASI recycling coordinator.
“We felt we really needed more on-campus recycling containers,” Johnson said. “There are 400 trash cans on campus, and we felt wherever there [was] a trash can there should be a recycling container next to it.”
The Associated Students Recycling Center purchased about 80 new pyramid-top recycling containers with a $41,000 grant from CalRecycle, a government program that offers funding opportunities to assist in the safe and effective management of the waste stream, according to the program’s website.
The grant allowed the center to double the number of recycling containers on campus, Johnson said.
Johnson said the recycling campaign is geared toward getting students to use the recycling containers, as well as raise awareness that Cal State Long Beach is home to one of the oldest recycling centers in California, which opened in 1970 and handles about 500,000 beverage containers each month, Johnson said.
College Beat Productions, CSULB’s student-run video production company, produced a series of 12 commercials for the Drink, Dunk, Done campaign that began Sept. 9, according to University Student Union Assistant Director of Programs Sylvana Cicero.
The commercials advocate for recycling and promoting proper recycling methods on campus, said Geno Mehalik, who supervises College Beat Productions.
“If a student holds onto an empty water bottle for a few minutes until they can find a recycle bin or takes the cap off their water bottle before recycling, we have done our job and it was all worth it,” Mehalik said.
The campaign is reaching out to students through signs posted around campus, a radio component on KBEACH.
Fernando Dehonor, a senior aerospace engineering and physics major who was featured in one of the commercials, collaborated on the campaign through his position as assistant conservation commissioner for the Beach Pride program.
“I really have a passion for the environment and being green,” said Dehonor, who hopes to design hydrogen-fueled cars and research alternate fuels one day. “Earth is our home. It won’t take care of itself. We are responsible for what we throw away.”
Dehonor said he hopes this campaign reaches a large pool of students and gets them thinking about what recycling is.
“It’s more than just being a hippie,” he said. “It’s a daily routine.”
With the convenience of having more recycling containers on campus, Cicero said, more students could develop a habit of recycling.
“I believe that this generation genuinely cares about sustainability and protecting the environment,” she said. “It is our hope that by creating this awareness on campus, it will lead to sustainable practices now and in the future lives of our students.”