Recycling Champs

At College Library’s all-staff meeting in September, staff received a training from the Office of Sustainability Green Office interns. At that training, both students and permanent staff learned about the different categories of recycling and appropriate practices for separating waste from recycling. To make things interesting, a competition was set between the service desks on the 1st and 2nd floors of the library. The bins at the respective service desks would be analyzed over the course of the semester to see which group established better recycling habits.

The challenge began in October when the library created best practices for recycling/waste containers at each desk and labeled them accordingly: mixed paper (at each workstation), office paper (central) and trash (central). The interns did a few waste audits to compare behavior early in the semester with behavior at the end of the semester and determined that the staff at the 1st floor InfoDesk had a better waste/recycling stream.

To congratulate the winning unit, the “Helen C. Green” recognition included a set of cupcakes. College Library is heartened by the efforts of staff to be mindful about sustainability and look forward to expanding our efforts in the future to include library patrons.