Recycling at Big Ten universities

In this article, the authors talk about how universities of the Big Ten conference are trying to get their students to be more sustainable. “In 2006, the Michigan State University Vice President for Finance and Operations [VPFO] launched the Be Spartan Green Environmental Stewardship Initiative with the goal of reducing the university’s environmental footprint while simultaneously increasing the efficiency of material and energy usage” (Kaplowitz, Yeboah, Wilson & Thorp, 2009).

 The first thing that researchers figured would be easy to start with is to get the students to recycle more on campus, but it didn’t help as much as they would have like it to. “They reported that goal-setting (e.g, asking participants to collect a set quantity of recycling materials over a period of time) promoted recycling among the university students, but public commitment (e.g, publishing names of individuals who have made a commitment to recycle in campus newspapers) did not significantly impact student recycling behavior” (Kaplowitz, Yeboah, Wilson & Thorp, 2009).

The authors have come up with a few different communication strategies for their recycling campaign. “Some institutions have designed recycling coursework as part of their efforts to communicate recycling information and increase environmental awareness” (Kaplowitz, 2009).

The authors also created a survey to see exactly how knowledgeable students were in knowing about recycling. After they received the ratings for the survey, they found out that the students didn’t know much about recycling and how it benefited the environment. Even though the students didn’t know much about recycling, that didn’t mean they didn’t want to learn. On the survey, the students were asked if they wanted to know more about recycling, and the student of MSU ranked number one in agreement in wanting to be more knowledgeable with recycling.

After the authors were done with their studies they realized that being educated in recycling should start with colleges and universities first.  “Not only is this recommendation in line with our own findings, but is also supported by the literature which indicates communication increases recycling participation when it addresses such knowledge gaps as how, what, and where to recycle” (Kaplowitz 2009).