In an effort to increase recycling on campus, Student Government Association officials started the contract process of having clothing recycling bins placed on campus this past summer, according to SGA President Melody Coffey.

The bins are in place to help students on campus donate their unused or unwanted clothing or shoes at their convenience without having to travel off campus.

“It’s a really good way for students who can’t or don’t drive to still be able to donate their old clothes or shoes without having to find a way to drive down the road to the Goodwill,” Ashley Beinavides, senior in marketing, said.

There is one bin for clothing outside of Killingsworth Hall beside the dumpsters, and there is a recycling bin for shoes in the Wellness Center.

But because there has been limited advertising, many students still did not know of the on-campus availability to donate their clothing items.

“I had no idea that MSU had clothing recycle bins,” Beinavides said.

Beinavides said if SGA officials promote and advertise the bins better, more students would be involved.

Although plans of small advertising are in the works, no advertising has been done at the moment to help spread the word about the new bins.

Coffey said they are still thinking of effective ways to promote the new recycling bins to the students. Some ideas that were brought up were creating flyers and putting more bins around the campus, including Clark Student Center, which is where students are most likely to see the bins and participate in recycling.

The new recycling bins were donated to the Student Government Association by the World Wear Project, which pays the school $250 for the first year its bins are placed on campus.

“We didn’t pay anything for them,” Coffey, a senior in engineering, said.

The company also pays 15 cents per pound of clothing and 85 cents per pound of athletic shoes.

The money raised from the recycling will hopefully be turned into some sort of scholarship for students, Coffey said, which serves as extra motivation to get them to be more involved with the recycling.

“I have already donated a ton of shoes, and now knowing that we could get a scholarship, I am more motivated to continue to donate,” Courtney Chorn, sophomore in nursing, said.

Chorn also said if there were more bins on campus, it would help to get students motivated to recycle their old clothing and shoes. She also said that these bins need to be in more populated areas around campus, like outside the library and outside every on campus housing facility, not just Killingsworth Hall.

“People who live in Sundance or Bridwell don’t want to walk with one or multiple bags of clothing all the way to Killingsworth Hall to be able to donate,” Chorn said.

According to SGA officials, if more students get involved with the clothing-recycling project, there is a chance that the campus will be able keep the bins currently in place and add bins to more locations around campus.

“Now that I know about it, I have bags of clothes that I will definitely donate,” Beinavides said.

READ Campus Watch article on this topic.

SEE 2012 ARTICLE about recycling on paper.