LIU Post
EN-5: Outreach Campaign

The LIU Post Recycling Program has sponsored a scholarship every year since 2010 by redeeming the 5-cent deposits that are found on bottles and cans in the State of New York. To win that scholarship, students must participate in the annual Sustainable Creative Expressions Contest. Therefore, in an attempt to raise more awareness about the contest and hence more money for the scholarship, the LIU Post Recycling Program launched the 20,000 Bottles Campaign. This campaign was promoted to the entire campus community, including faculty and staff, even though the primary goal was to educate students about the opportunity to receive a scholarship. By promoting the goal of recycling 20,000 bottles, the campus community would ensure that the LIU Post Recycling Program would have raised at least $1,000 for its annual student scholarship.

During the first year of the scholarship, the Recycling Program raised $250, a result of recycling 5,000 bottles and cans. In its second year, the program raised $600, a result of recycling 12,000 bottles and cans. Last year, in its third year, the Recycling Program raised $1,000, a result of recycling 20,000 bottles and cans, the very mark that was set for the 20,000 Bottles Campaign.

Along with participating in the much larger nationwide RecycleMania Tournament, LIU Post holds a variety of other recycling competitions to encourage and help increase recycling efforts on campus. This includes competitions between athletic teams, student clubs and organizations, and residence halls. Over the years, the goal has always been to see who can recycle the most during a 1-week period. However, all competitions are now judged on a per-capita basis.

In 2012, the LIU Post Recycling Program purchased hand-scales in order to weigh individual bags that were getting recycled through the various RecycleMania competitions. In the past, all bottles and cans were counted individually and assigned points based on the type of material. Teams were also assembled in equal numbers to maintain fairness. So, one large athletic team may have recycled against a team of 3 or 4 smaller athletic teams. Now, all bags are simply weighed and the total weight is divided by the total number of members in the group to determine a per-capita recycling statistic. For example, in April 2013, the sorority Alpha Xi Delta won the Greeks Going Green competition by recycling around 1,800 pounds of paper, cardboard, and bottles, which was approximately 45 pounds per member.