The Libraries’ Green Committee and its successful Recycling Sorting Station game developed for this fall’s Open House at University Park so impressed members of Penn State’s Sustainability Institute that they have developed two versions of it for ongoing campus-wide educational initiatives.
Jennifer Funk, Interlibrary Loan information resources and services support specialist and Green Committee member, suggested the idea of a sorting station as a way to involve the Green Committee in Open House activities, and to help educate a new cohort of students and other new patrons about recycling and composting best practices. The Sorting Station stop on the Open House tour gave the committee an opportunity to illustrate both proper sorting and its impact.
Linda Struble, information resources and services supervisor-manager at Penn State’s Engineering Library and a member of the Libraries’ Green Committee, volunteered at the Sorting Station. “The students really seemed to enjoy it. And because Penn State’s Sustainability Institute also provided us with examples of products made from recycled materials, like fleece clothing and carpeting, it helped demonstrated the value of proper recycling,” she said.
Linda Struble, a member of the University Libraries’ Green Committee, answers students’ recycling and composting questions during the Libraries’ Open House. The committee’s sorting station game offered a fun way to educate new students, faculty and staff about Penn State’s commitment to sustainability.
Committee members used baskets that patrons use for carrying books as “recycling bins” for the game, and as luck would have it, an older green basket was available to stand in as the game’s compost bin. Members also printed sheets of recycling signage similar to those on the Libraries’ recycling bins, and posters listing five actions individuals can take to reduce their waste.
They borrowed the Sustainability Institute’s bag of clean recyclables available for such programs and collected other oddball recycling items to challenge players. The Institute also provided an “answer key” indicating where each item should be placed correctly in the waste stream.
“We made sure to insert humor into the game,” Struble added. “For instance, multiple participants feigned surprise when they discovered a rubber chicken in the compostable bin, representing a real chicken, bones and all, that are compostable.”
Lydia Vandenbergh, the Sustainability Institute’s associate director of employee engagement and education, and other Sustainability Institute members volunteered for shifts at the sorting station along with Green Committee members. After they saw the sorting station game’s success, Sustainability Institute members decided to use the same concept to create a traveling educational show, tentatively called the Recycling and Composting Roadshow.
Two versions of the Roadshow were developed — one for high student-traffic areas, including on-campus dining halls, the HUB-Robeson Center, and the University Libraries, and the other for more general-traffic campus audiences including classroom buildings.
Karen Serago, academic adviser at the Smeal College of Business, and Dan Cahoy, professor of business law and a member of the college’s sustainability board, learned about the recycling and composting roadshow from Penn State student Kaitlynn Hamaty, an intern at the Sustainability Institute.
The Roadshow already is in use, and Sustainability Institute members have demonstrated it to Green Team representatives across the University Park campus and offered it for future educational programs. The committee’s idea also will be featured in the Sustainability Institute’s e-newsletter.
Congratulations to the Green Committee, whose ingenuity has inspired a new level of sustainability education at University Park.
