Earth Day 2008
UNM-Gallup campus going green

By Bill Donovan
Staff writer

GALLUP — The University of New Mexico-Gallup campus has slowly been going green over the past few weeks.

Signs saying “Go Green, UNM-G,” have been cropping up all over the campus, along with bins urging students, faculty and staff to be more aware of the environment and recycle.

This is all part of efforts by people in the Gallup area to focus more on recycling, which will be the focus also of activities this weekend at the First United Methodist Church.

Credit for the efforts now under way at UNM-G should go to the environmental sociology class of Caleb Bush.

Bush, now in his second year of teaching at UNM-G, got the idea of having his class get hands-on experience in the recycling movement after he looked around the campus and saw no one was doing anything.

“So for he first half of the year we set it up and this second half we have been implementing our plans,” he said, adding that while the initial push was his, credit for actually implementing it should go to the class members.

This included discussions on what the class wanted to recycle and where they would take the items once they were turned in.

The class homed in on three items: Aluminum cans, white paper and electronics including batteries and cell phones.

Bins for aluminum cans and white paper have been set up throughout the campus and everyone is encouraged to do their part by putting the appropriate items inside.

The key word here is appropriate because in recycling efforts by others in the past in Gallup, one of the biggest problems that have been encountered is making sure that people throw, for example, only aluminum cans in the bins and not tin cans because of the amount of time it takes to sort the items before they are turned in to a recycling center.

“We have been pretty specific and people have been very cooperative,” Bush said, pointing out that people have been told that they should not include paper clips or staples with their white paper.

The group would also like to recycle plastic .

“We generate a lot of plastic on campus,” Bush said. “The problem is no one local takes it.”

Earth Day

It used to be quite acceptable for many people to treat their concerns about the environment the way a lot of people treated their religious obligations — going to church on Easter and Christmas and feeling they have done their duty to God.

So there would be people who got concerned about the environment when Earth Day rolled around.

“People would go pick up trash on that day or so some other symbolic act,” said Betsy Windisch, who is helping coordinate a number of Earth Day activities for the Gallup area this Saturday.

In Gallup, most of the events will be held Saturday at the First United Methodist Church, although the church will be sponsoring a speech on Sunday on environmental issues as well.

This year’s main event at the church, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., shows just how far things have come with a good crowd expected to participate in this year’s events. Everyone likes a rummage sale, so the main attraction at this year’s event will be a daylong rummage sale.

Recycling is big this year and the McKinley Citizen’s Recycling Council will the main sponsor of the recycling exhibits, which will include a demonstration on what can be recycled and how much it can save a family.

People can also turn in plastic, but only No. 1 and No. 2 plastic and it must be sorted by number.