September 2017 Newsletter

First-Year Student Picnic

On August 20th, incoming BGSU students attended the annual "low-waste" First-Year Student Fall Welcome Picnic that included free food, music and great entertainment. In order to make it a low-waste event recycling stations were provided surrounding the picnic area, including bins for recycling bottles and cans, and a bin for composting leftover apples and apple cores. Frisbees replaced traditional plates which allowed students to take home their plate for future use. If students did not want to keep the frisbee another bin at each recycling station was provided so that the collected frisbees could be cleaned and reused for future purposes. Volunteers helped to monitor each recycling station and educated new students on proper recycling, composting and the necessity of responsible waste management. After the event, all of the recyclables were collected. The goal for the Office of Campus Sustainability was to introduce the importance of reducing waste, reusing items, and recycling to new students in order to encourage a continued sustainable environment at BGSU.

All Campus Picnic

BGSU hosted the All Campus Picnic Friday, September 15th, bringing back a previously dormant tradition. The university stepped up their "low-waste" picnic efforts and made this a "zero-waste" picnic. This feature made the 2017 All Campus Picnic really stand out from other events and generated a lot of excitement from the campus and surrounding community. In order to make this event zero-waste it was ensured that everything served at the picnic was recyclable, reusable, or compostable, and therefore no trash was created. All food was served on compostable plates and napkins, all beverages came in recyclable containers, and full post-consumer composting was provided for not only the plates and napkins, but also for any leftover food. This event was an exciting glimpse into what all campus events can eventually look like when we put sustainability at the forefront. Thank you to our volunteers for staffing the recycling and compost stations and helping to make this "zero-waste" concept into a reality! Way to go Falcons!

Chapman Learning Community Green Team

Once again this year at Kohl Hall the Office of Campus Sustainability partnered with the Chapman learning community to host a "Green Move-In" service project. Despite the rain on move-in day, August 17th, 60 volunteers helped incoming residents recycle cardboard outside residence halls. The service project was a major success, preventing cardboard, bottles, cans, and paper from being thrown out. Because of the hard work of these volunteers, multiple tons of cardboard was diverted from the landfill and instead will be recycled, eliminating the need to use even more non-renewable resources! A huge thank you to all the members of the Chapman Learning Community for kicking off the 2017-2018 academic year with sustainability in mind!

Green Game Day

The first BGSU home football game was on September 9th and allowed for many students, parents and alumni to get their first look at the 2017 roster as Bowling Green played South Dakota. While fans were tailgating and enjoying the start of football season, volunteers for BGSU’s Office of Campus Sustainability were busy working the “Green Game Day” initiative. Green Game Day is a sustainable initiative that occurs at every home football game and recruits volunteers for the Green Team which works to reduce waste at the event. Volunteers rode golf carts around the outside of the stadium, distributing green bags to fans to encourage recycling at the game. In addition, recycling stations were positioned around tailgating areas and inside the stadium to ensure that the greatest amount of bottles, cans and other recyclables were collected and not thrown out. After being sorted for contamination and items that could not be recycled, the remaining recyclables were gathered into a central container. Green Game Day is a successful sustainable initiative that on average last year had a waste diversion rate as high as 70%. Reducing waste at large sporting events is just one of many ways that the Office of Campus Sustainability is encouraging environmentally-conscious actions on campus.

September 2017

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