Going green on Campus-Extension

Recently around the globe, there has been a big change in the way people around the world think about energy and water use. The threat of global warming is looming, and people need to begin altering the way we use our resources. There have been many changes around the University of Central Florida to make it greener and more sustainable, such as adding recycling containers and starting a community garden. All of these events around campus show that students and faculty actually care about the environment and that ‘going green’ isn’t just a fad.

As I observe the growing amount of recycling containers of all types as I trek across our campus, I’m glad UCF started to take a stand against the growing amount of recyclable items going into the trash. There are bins for aluminum cans, plastic bottles, newspaper, ink cartridges, plastic bags, and cardboard located in every building and location on campus. I feel a sense of pride whenever I see a container that is almost full. This means that many of our 50,000 students are taking the extra step and recycling, when they could have just as easily thrown a recyclable item in the trash. Every game day event I have attended so far, there have been numerous can and bottle recycling containers and they always seem to be full. Imagine how many cans that would have been lying in our landfills! UCF dining services has also started an event that each home game if you bring twelve cans or plastic bottles to a stand outside of Knightro’s you receive a free t-shirt! If that isn’t a great incentive to start recycling, then I don’t know what is!