Way Overdue Update

I originally set out to make the fraternity more green for personal reasons. Call me a treehugger, hippie, whatever - I care about the environment. I have implemented a recycling program in the house and now have officially passed the position down to Brian F. The transfer of power legitimizes the position, and that is nice to know. Also, there are several freshman in the house looking to go green. I can think of 4 off the top of my head.

So far the recycling chair does the following: collects and brings cans to recycling center for $$$ and maintains a recycling program for the house. For about $20/month, we have a large bin for recycling that is picked up Friday mornings. It is imperative that recycling is put out Thursday night. If it is not taken out, the recycling on the main floor is seriously backed up. The main floor has a recycling corner with the large bin and a few other blue bins. There is (hopefully) a recycling bin in each room of the frat house. It is the responsibility of each room to bring and empty their recycling bins to the main floor when needed. We accept paper, plastic, just no glass (which sucks). Although the house creates a huge amount of waste, it is nice to know that some of it will be recycled. I try to focus on recycling newspapers. We get the Daily Illini every day, the Booze News weekly, and several other crap/saver/clipper magazines. I like to get this stuff out of the way. Basically, I feel like a trashman sometimes because of all the garbage I sometimes have to go through. So it goes.

Recycling cans is different and actually a decent source of money for the house. As expected from a fraternity, we drink a lot of "soda." Now these "soda" cans are thrown into a big trough in the dining area on the main floor. It actually works very well because people can just toss the cans recklessly and make it into the trough. Eventually when we have 3-4 garbage bags full of cans, we load them into somebody's car (preferably a truck or a pickup). I fit them into my dad's lexus sedan a few times. It's tight and the car should be driven with the windows open. The cans go to a recycling center in Champaign. We have used Illini Recycling for a time, but there may be other centers where we can get more money. Like everything else, the current recession has hurt aluminum prices.

I would guess we have made about $200 just from recycling cans. That is a decent amount and something I am proud of. That money is basically the budget for the recycling chair. I have used that to buy supplies to plant trees on the side of the frat house. This fall, we planted an apple and a peach tree. The peach tree will die. But if I can come back to the house in say 10 years and see an apple tree, I'll be pretty happy. I also would like to use this money to purchase trees in Israel. As we are a Jewish fraternity and Israel is a very progressive green country, it is important to combine the two. Trees cost $18 (chai) and will be planted in Israel. Anyone who has been to Israel knows how beautiful it is, especially because of the biodiversity (yeah....I took environmental biology). Obviously, planting trees is a great way to offset carbon emissions. Possibly next year, I would like to use the recycling budget and money from the house and national chapter for some green projects. I am thinking along the lines of a green roof. Solar panels are out of the question.

That is really all I have to say now.

Yes We Can

Danny O.