The Boland Hall Council is sponsoring a dormitory recycling competition this semester in an attempt to better educate Boland residents as well as Seton Hall University about going green.
The Hall Council received many of their ideas from Mary Anderson, a resident assistant. Those ideas began circulating in Hall Council meetings, and so the council created a "Going Green" committee, consisting of about 20 people. President Quemars Ahmed and Vice President Russell Gautsch became adamant in their desire to educate residents about recycling.
"One of the things he wanted to adopt into our campaign was to try and make Boland Hall green," Ahmed said.
Ahmed noted that the recent drop in Seton Hall's "green grade" makes student involvement increasingly important.
"After Seton Hall got a drop in their environmental grade, the need to do all we can is that much more imperative," Ahmed said.
In the process of going green, Hall Council wanted to begin educating residents about being eco-friendly, but make it appeal to college students as well.
"We all decided that a competition would be a great idea to start generating interest for more people to recycle," Gautsch said. "It is a fun way to help spread recycling awareness as well as creating a friendly competition between the floors.
Hall Council advisor Rae Esmores noted that it's currently focused on residents.
"They wanted to make recycling more of an initiative in residence halls," Esmores said. "The competition is between floors, and in the end, the winning floor gets a pizza party."
Each floor now has recycling bins that they are responsible for filling up. Recycling is accessible to every resident on each floor, which is a change from years past.
"Each floor has its own trash room, however the recycling bins are not clearly labeled and not identifiable at all," Gautsch said. "If we can make it easier for people to recycle by having more recycling bins and awareness then maybe people will recycle more."
About three times a week if there is a large flow of recyclables, Anderson empties the smaller recycling bins into larger bins.
Each floor has a tally to keep track of where they stand, and the competition is heating up as it reaches a possible end in December.
However, fifth floor Council Representative Kelly Freeman noted that it is possible that the competition could expand to the end of the academic year.
"Boland Hall's commitment to going green is a yearlong commitment that won't just end with this competition," Ahmed said. " It's just a very small step towards getting to a greener Boland Hall we all want to see."
One of Hall Council's goals is to fundraise to get larger bins for each floor. Other plans include the plan to ask the Student Government Association to get funding to purchase bigger bins so that their recycling efforts can create a greener campus.
Ahmed himself would like to see a greener campus come out of these efforts. "Sometimes we need to go a little green, in order to take more pride in our Seton Hall blue," he said.
Samantha Desmond can be reached at samantha.desmond@student.shu.edu.
