College students learn new ways to recycle
TerraCycle Include USA
Environmental educator Leah King-Badyna has a bonus question for students at the College of Coastal Georgia.
When your writing pen runs out of ink, you:
a.) Toss it in the trash can.
b.) Drop in on the ground.
c.) Stuff it in bottom of your backpack with all the other out-of-ink pens in there.
d.) Drop it off at one of the six recycling containers set up across campus specifically for pens, markers and highlighters.
The really cool students know that the correct answer is D. Just ask junior marketing major Eric Seals. The young man from Brunswick knows that CCGA’s 3,400 students go through a lot of pens, markers and highlighters. Without this recycling program by Keep Golden Isles Beautiful, that many small, plastic writing tools could eventually add up to a significant problem in a landfill.
“I think it’s really interesting because a lot of this stuff gets thrown in the trash,” Seals said Thursday in the student center. “Especially with pens and stuff because they’re running out of ink all the time. I’ll put all my used pens in those containers.”
Seals earned high marks from King-Badyna, whose status as environmental educator comes with her role as executive director of Keep Golden Isles Beautiful. The nonprofit organization introduced this new recycling program Thursday, setting up a demonstration table in the student center on the campus, located on Atlama Avenue in Brunswick.
Pens, highlighters and markers cannot be recycled locally. But Keep Golden Isles Beautiful collects these items and sends them off to TerraCycle, a non-traditional recycling organization. Terra Cycle is a global nonprofit organization that finds uses for hundreds of items that are not part of traditional large-scale recycling efforts, such as aluminum cans, plastic bottles and paper.
“Pens, markers and highlighters are things that are normally thrown away because we do not have the ability to recycle these locally in Glynn County,” King-Badyna said. “It is just another way that Keep Golden Isles Beautiful and our partners can help reduce waste and keep these things out of the landfill.”
Keep Golden Isles Beautiful has already seen success with this program in a school setting. During the Recycling Challenge in October, some 14 public and private schools combined to deliver 65 pounds of used pens, markers and highlighters in a one-month period, King-Badyna said.
“And that’s a lot,” King-Badyna said. “And once again it’s keeping it out of the landfill. It’s all about waste reduction.”
Local residents also can drop off these used writing tools at the Keep Golden Isles Beautiful office, located on the first floor of Old City Hall, 503 Mansfield St.
On campus at CCGA, students will find the clear plastic, cylindrical-shaped recyclable containers at the six locations spaced conveniently across campus. Matt Giovengo, a student at both CCGA and Brunswick High, has volunteered to empty containers monthly and take the recyclables to Keep Golden Isles Beautiful for shipment to TerraCycle.
Seals plans to spread the word to fellow students at CCGA to stop putting used pens in the trash, on the ground and in the bottom of backpacks.
“Finding a way to turn it into something new is really awesome,” Seals said. “I think students will be more than willing to put their pens into a receptacle.”