SIMONE VIRZI — News Writer
St. Patrick’s Day isn’t until next month, but Southern has already been in the green spirit—green for recycling, that is.
The university is participating in a “Like” the Logo Facebook competition with approximately 20 other universities, according to Heather Stearns, director of recycling. Of the schools with the top three-most votes, one school will be the winner of $5,000 worth of recycling containers from Busch Systems.
“This is the first contest of this magnitude for Busch Systems,” said Serena Brooks, sales manager for Busch Systems, in a press release. “With budget money being tight, it is a great opportunity for schools to earn free recycling bins. It will also
encourage students to get creative in promoting their campus recycling program.”
To vote for Southern’s logo, a student can go to the SCSU Recycling page, and “like” its green logo. The green “Sustainable Southern” logo was designed for the competition by someone who works in Public Affairs, according to Stearns.
“This is simple,” she said. “I think we can get a lot of votes easily.”
An individual can only vote once, but every vote counts. Stearns said she posted the contest on her own Facebook page to bring more awareness to the competition.
“I would love if people would post it on their [Facebook] page,” she said.
There are approximately 12,000 students at Southern and at least 11,000—if not all of them—have a Facebook account, Stearns said. So if every student voted, the university could win.
The contest “brings awareness” to recycling, “even if we don’t win,” Stearns said.
Last Wednesday, students had the chance to vote in the Engleman Hall rotunda; students were encouraged to use the laptops provided to log on to their Facebook account and vote.
Junior Cody McClave stopped at the table to “like” the logo. He was drawn to the “catchy table” he said, adding he is also friends with a girl at the Service Day table and wanted to say hello.
Freshman Rachel Carlson also voted for Southern’s logo on Feb. 15 in Engleman.
“I really want to recycle,” she said. “Anything I can do, I try.”
Carlson said winning the additional recycling containers would be beneficial for the university.
“I feel like it’s necessary at Southern,” she said.
On her way to get lunch at Conn Hall, she said she was going to tell her friend about the contest so they can vote as well.
A table will be set up again on Wednesday, Feb. 22 from 11-2 p.m. so students will have the chance to vote again in the rotunda, according to Stearns.
Students who were in a hurry and did not have time to vote right then were given instructions about how to vote so they could participate when they had free time. Students have the chance to vote for Southern’s logo until Monday, Feb. 27 at 4 p.m.
According to its website, Busch Systems has been in business for over 25 years. It “manufactures the world’s largest, most complete line of recycling, waste and compost containers.”
“As part of our commitment to the community and the environment, we engineer our containers to use less natural resources and to ship far more effectively, thereby avoiding large volumes of carbon emissions. All of our products contain recycled content and are 100 percent recyclable and are proudly made in North America,” according to Busch Systems website.
As of Monday afternoon 36 schools were participating in the contest, and Southern had 82 votes.
The “Like” the Logo contest is just one of several recycling activities occurring on campus this semester, said Stearns, including RecycleMania, which is a recycling competition amongst the nine dorm halls on campus.
