Real Cowboys recycle

Thursday, October 30, 2008

By Katie Butler

(October 30, 2008  Stillwater, OK) -The Student Government Association Sustainability committee is helping educate and encourage tailgaters to recycle cans through the Real Cowboys Recycle Tailgate program.

The program was created in 2007 by Cortney Timmons and is in its second year, but this is the first year that SGA has teamed up with Habitat for Humanity and will be donating all of the cans collected to Habitat’s CANS program. The group has already collected almost 300 30-gallon bags of aluminum cans in their recycling efforts.

“We go from tailgate to tailgate not only to collect cans but also as an environmental education outreach,” said Savannah Smith, chair of the sustainability committee this year. “Most people really want to help but there are still some tailgaters that don’t pay attention or aren’t aware of our program,”

The Real Cowboys Recycle program will be adding extra volunteers at tomorrow’s game with Iowa State in an attempt to make all tailgaters aware of the program. The President’s Leadership Council will be joining efforts with the Sustainability Committee adding almost 70 extra volunteers.

“We really just want more people to be aware that we are not only trying to help the environment, but we are also donating to a great cause,” Smith said.

So far this season, the committee has collected 52 bags at the Houston game, 11 bags at the Missouri State game, 58 bags at Troy game, 81 bags at the Texas A&M game and a record 83 bags during the Homecoming game against Baylor.

The goal is to fill up the can cage at the Stillwater Habitat for Humanity Restore by the end of the football season, which will mean Habitat will receive about $2,400.

“We are going to have to work really hard, but we have involved many more tailgaters this season and improvement is all we can ask for,” said Smith.

Volunteers who want to participate in the recycling project meet around 10 a.m. on the west side of Boone Pickens Stadium in the Posse parking lot in front of the Big 12 flag poles.

The sustainability committee is also working on a paper recycling program using five “paper retriever” bins around campus to give students and faculty a place to recycle any kind of paper including magazines, newspapers or colored paper. The committee expects to generate money with the recycled paper program to fund more sustainability programs.