Green Tip of the Week — Gimme 5

September 28, 2009

It’s easy now to recycle yogurt cups and other #5 plastics on campus.  Like these:

➢    Yogurt cups
➢    Hummus containers
➢    Medicine bottles
➢    Sour cream cups
➢    Plastic storage containers (take-out Chinese, Tupperware, and the like)
➢    Margarine or Benecol or “I Can’t Believe” (any spread, really) containers
➢    Ice cream cups

Check your container first.  Do you see a recycle triangle with a 5 inside it?  That means it is #5 plastic, and it’s eligible (once you rinse it out) for a “Gimme 5” bin.

Our new “Gimme 5” recycling program, all student-driven, was launched last year by ’08 alumna Alex Gross.  Thank you, Alex!

We are the first university to have this Gimme 5 program, in partnership with Preserve Products.  We are pioneers in going-green territory.  A breakthrough.

The planet thanks you for identifying your #5s, rinsing them, and finding a Gimme 5 bin to toss them in.

The Gimme 5 bins have a bright green top, with two container-sized holes.
They are about 3 feet tall.
They have blue silhouettes on them of yogurt cups, medicine bottles, and the rest.
Very clear!

Here are the five Gimme 5 bins on campus:  (so far)

➢    Just inside the front door of the BCC extension.
➢    Just inside the back door of the BCC extension.
➢    Inside the Stag Diner (by sometime next week).
➢    In the Loyola Commons.
➢    In the Library’s 24-hour study lounge.

Who takes care of these bins?  Students.

Zach Gross—yes, Alex’s brother—is Recycling Coordinator for the campus.  He sets out the bins.

Dana August of the Student Environmental Association tells me that SEA members go through the bins each week, check for contamination, and then package the containers and ship them off to the Preserve company in Cortland, New York.

Preserve keeps these #5 containers out of landfills by recycling them into new products like toothbrushes and razor blades and  tableware and kitchen products.  Then they take even their own products back and upcycle them into plastic wood for park benches and decks.  Win-win-win.

One more thing:

Do you use a Brita pitcher to filter tap water?  That Brita filter is #5 plastic.

Just put your Brita filters into a “Gimme 5” container.  Brita and Preserve have now teamed up.

Activism works.  Many of us have been part of that online petition-signing grassroots organization “Take Back the Filter!” that persuaded the Brita manufacturers to team up with Preserve, get their filters recycled, and regenerate (or convert to energy) the filter ingredients.  We succeeded.

Want to see what a successful grassroots campaign looks like?  Here.

One person at a time, one container at a time, and pretty soon we have real numbers.