Marquette University
ER-2: Student Sustainability Outreach Campaign

The Let’s talk trash… campaign was launched to help inform and educate the Marquette community about the switch to single-stream recycling in fall 2009. The campaign had a media blitz approach to educate the community about how to recycle under the new system. A dedicated single-stream recycling website was created; the program was highlighted in Marquette’s News Briefs and several other campus publications; flyers with what is and is not recyclable were handed out across campus; and custodians whore “Let’s talk trash…” t-shirts and were encouraged to talk to students, faculty and staff about single-stream recycling. No 2 Go was a campaign by Sodexo in spring 2012 to try and curb the use and disposal of to-go containers in Marquette Place, which is one of the dining locations to-go containers are heavily used on campus. During the campaign Sodexo displayed all the to-go containers used (i.e. thrown away) the week prior to the campaign, and informed students that if they were dining in Marquette Place they could use trays instead. MU Unplugged was a class project in fall 2009 which aimed at reducing energy use in three residence halls during a particular month. The students from the class engaged their friends and classmates in their residence halls to see how much energy they could save. Take Back the Tap was the focus of Students for an Environmentally Active Campus’s Half Earth Day celebration in October 2012. The idea was to raise awareness about plastic water bottle disposal on campus and to get people to drink tap water instead. The different outreach efforts included: a visual representation of plastic bottle disposal on campus; a screening of the documentary Tapped; tap water/bottled water taste test; and informational tabling sessions.

Let’s talk trash… resulted in a 3 percent increase in the recycling rate in the first semester. Flyers are now handed out every year to incoming freshman and are available in PDF for departments to download, print, and post. Since beginning single-stream, Marquette’s recycling rate has increased from 18 percent to 30 percent. No to Go resulted in about 2000 containers saved per week for the remainder of the semester. MU Unplugged results: Cobeen Hall reduced their energy consumption by 17.6 percent; McCormick Hall reduced their energy consumption by 15.4 percent; and Schroeder Hall reduced their energy consumption by 21.1 percent. Combined, these efforts saved a little over $5,400 for the month. No impacts have been measured for Take Back the Tap to date.