APSU students encourage recycling with Great Green Idea Contest

Julianna Smith

Austin Peay State University’s Office of Community Engagement & Sustainability recently completed its annual student competition to get students thinking “green.” The Great Green Idea Contest challenges students to come up with ideas to improve campus and encourage students to think and act more sustainable. This year’s top winners were focused on recycling efforts. Several winning ideas have turned into reality for the campus community as the staff and students worker together to move sustainable ideas into campus norms.

First place winner Julianna Smith, an art education major, submitted an idea for traditional “trash” items to be upcycled into art installments on campus to bring awareness to the issue of waste and recycling items. Smith hopes this project will “bring more awareness to recycling and all of the ways we can reuse things that we traditionally think of as trash”.

Second place winner Oliver Cates thinks we need to increase the recycling receptacles for residential students to encourage more recycling, especially cardboard containers. Cates wants it to be as easy and accessible for students to give their “trash” a second chance, whether it be reused by others or recycled into new materials as it is to throw away into the landfill.

Third place winner D’ Angelo Colon is concerned about energy use and lighting in classrooms. APSU hosts 13 academic buildings, each hosting classrooms with varying lighting needs.

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