Both the Residential Initiative on the Study of the Environment, or RISE, and Eco will join forces at the rock on Farm Lane today to celebrate Earth Day.
"Every day is Earth Day, but it is important to have an Earth Day to remind people who might be too busy to think about it," said zoology senior Sowkya Rangarajan, who is a member of RISE and Eco.
Members will collect petition signatures today for a comprehensive recycling program at MSU and inform students of ways they can be more Earth-friendly.
Members also stood on campus Wednesday and Thursday and said they received a good response from many people who checked out their information.
The campus needs a facility to sort and bail recycled material, rather than having to pay to send it off campus, Rangarajan said. The group plans to gather 16,000 signatures before presenting the petition to the MSU Board of Trustees.
But RISE Program Director Laurie Thorp said that as she stood with students who were passing out information, there were many people who showed indifference to the environmental issues.
"As an idealist, I would hope there would be more people who are sensitive to these issues," she said.
The university recycles some office paper and newspapers, but in December, the Residence Halls Association voted to eliminate funding for an on-campus recycling program at the end of spring semester.
MSU's Office of Recycling and Waste Management Department Manager Pete Pasterz said after the association's funding of the program is removed, the future of the program is unclear.
Starting this fall, the Office for Recycling and Waste Management and University Housing will expand a cafeteria recycling program to East McDonel, Holmes, Akers and Hubbard halls to recycle cardboard boxes, steel cans and bottles used in kitchen preparation. The program already is in effect this year in Holden, Wilson and Wonders halls.
MSU Board of Trustees member Dorothy Gonzales said that as a board member, she is interested in hearing what Eco and RISE have to say about the state of recycling at MSU and their efforts to clean up the environment.
The board has the final say in whether a recycling center is created, but Gonzales would not comment on the call for a recycling facility on campus.
With plans in place for a tailgating recycling program and the expansion of the cafeteria recycling programs in the fall, Pasterz said the university is "moving in a good direction."
A comprehensive program is not in MSU's immediate future, he said.
"Since we don't have access to that type of facility ... it makes it harder," Pasterz said. "The facility issue is one of the bottlenecks to expanding recycling more deeply."
But as the future of the recycling program at MSU remains up in the air, Rangarajan hopes people maintain their focus on other environmental issues.
"To me, recycling is recycling, and someone has to do it," Rangarajan said. "But there are other things like pollution and degradation that are important, too. It's about the big picture."
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Suggestions for conservation:
• Buy recycled paper to support the recyclable industry.
• Buy reusable bottles and reuse plastic water bottles.
• When typing homework, use 10-point font and only use 1.5 spacing instead of double spacing to reduce the amount of paper used.
• Print on the clean side of old course packs or fliers and print on both sides of papers to reduce the amount of clean paper used.
• Take shorter showers and turn off the water while brushing your teeth to preserve water.
Source: Residential Initiative on the Study of the Environment
