State Recycling Summit to Include Opportunities for Colorado Campuses

If you’re interested in recycling and are a student, faculty, or staff at a college or university in Colorado, please mark your calenders for June 7-8, 2004. The Colorado Summit for Recycling has been expanded this year to include special sessions and discounts for campus recyclers. This is the premier recycling event in Colorado- one that you should not miss.

These discounted sessions have been offered by the Colorado Association for Recycling (CAFR). CAFR recognizes the unique challenges and opportunities of colleges and universities and helps sponsor the Campus Recycling Network. Since some of you are new to the project, let me introduce myself and this network.

I direct the University of Colorado’s recycling program in Boulder. In addition to my on-campus duties, I administered a small grant from the Governor's Officeof Energy Management and Conservation to create the "Colorado Campus Recycling Network". The aim of the network is to improve recycling on campuses and in college towns around the State, by sharing information and resources.

Over the past year, a small group of us launched a website where contacts for campus recycling programs are listed. There’s also an extensive set of recycling-related resources from around the country and an e-mail listserver so subscribers can communicate rapidly with each other. If you haven’t already done so, please visit the site and join the listserver: www .colorado.edu/recycling/network.

The next big step on our workplan is to boost membership in CAFR and offer discounts to attend their upcoming conference. CAFR has created a membership category for higher education institutions with reasonable $85 annual dues. As a member of CAFR, your students and campus associates can then join for just $20. Benefits of membership are significant.

CAFR is the only Colorado recycling organization that is an affiliate of the National Recycling Coalition (NRC). When you join CAFR, you automatically become a member of NRC as well as the national College and University Recycling Council (CURC). The NRC, based in Washington, D.C. provides:

• technical education
• public information
• shapes public and private policy on recycling
• encourages the purchase and use of recycled content materials
• advocates for nationwide market development to promote recyclables as raw materials in manufacturing

By joining CAFR, students, faculty, and staff at your school also receive discounted rates at the upcoming conference and campus workshop. This year, the Colorado Recycling Summit will be held in Breckenridge, June 7-8. The campus workshop will be held Monday, June 7th 8-12am. We are also scheduling campus networking meetings, and a general session on campus-community recycling opportunities.

So I encourage your school to join CAFR to take advantage of all that’s being planned. Please visit their website: http://www.cafr.org/. In the next two weeks, we will be soliciting your input on topics to cover in the three hour campus recycling workshop on June 7th.

For Immediate Release
Contact: Jack DeBell, 303-492-8307

University of Colorado Launches Campus Recycling Network
‘Colorado Campus Recycling Network’ Launched In Response To Growing Student Interest

BOULDER, November 13, 2003 – University of Colorado announces a new network for campus recycling, “The Colorado Campus Recycling Network,” which was formed in response to Colorado’s growing student interest in environmentalism. The aim of the network is to improve recycling on campuses and in college towns around the State, by sharing information, best practices and ideas. The Colorado Governor’s Office of Energy Management and Conservation was involved in the planning and funding of this campus recycling network.

The Colorado Campus Recycling Network is ready to improve recycling around the state. The group’s first project was the recent launch of a website where contacts for seven campus recycling programs are listed, and more are expected to join. The site contains a “toolbox” where recycling coordinators can share successes, allowing others to benefit and avoid reinventing recycling programs on each campus. Additionally, there’s an extensive set of recycling-related resources from around the country and an e-mail listserver so subscribers can communicate rapidly with each other.

With this initial work accomplished, organizers are already working on projects of statewide importance. One such project aggregates schools’ purchasing power towards environmentally preferable goods and services. Other projects in the works include training and career placement, and better “town-gown” collaboration.

The Colorado Campus Recycling network enables higher education to respond to student interest in topics, such as recycling, which continue to increase, partially due to environmental education instilled in grades K-12 since Earth Day 1990. College students today have been recycling since elementary school. Many of them are now interested in taking resource management classes, finding internships with local recycling businesses, and pursuing environmental professions after graduation.

However, there aren’t many programs in Colorado schools on basic recycling programs for student participation. With a few exceptions, Colorado's colleges and universities have less developed waste reduction and landfill diversion programs than peer institutions around the country. Nationwide, approximately 78 percent of the nation’s 3,500 colleges and universities have an established recycling program, compared to less than one-third of Colorado’s schools.

Campus recycling networks exist around the country at the state and national levels. North Carolina, and California for instance, have campus recycling organizations sponsored by their state recycling organizations. Wisconsin and Florida fund campus recycling networks with state government funds. Also, the College and University Recycling Council (CURC) began as an informal caucus in 1990 and then was funded as the Technical Council of the National Recycling Coalition (NRC) in 1995.

Jack DeBell directs CU-Boulder’s Recycling Program and has helped organize other campus programs around the state and nation. He’s enthused with the potential for such a network in Colorado. “Colleges and universities can make important, even decisive contributions to help the environment. Students are ready but are we?” he added.

For more information about the Colorado Campus Recycling Network, including sponsorship opportunities and free subscription, visit the new Web site or call 303-492-8307.

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