The College of Charleston has been awarded a grant from the Alcoa Foundation, in partnership with national nonprofit Keep America Beautiful (KAB) and the College & University Recycling Coalition (CURC).
The grant provides 1,065 recycling bins to the College of Charleston as part of its national bin grant program to colleges and universities throughout the country. The bin grant program is an effort to help schools expand their recycling collections throughout the year.
The Alcoa Foundation has awarded 32 grants to colleges and universities, ranging from well-known, large universities to smaller schools. The College of Charleston will use the stackable, six-gallon bins to expand recycling, beginning with a pilot program in Robert Scott Small (RSS) Building at 175 Calhoun Street. Approximately 107 bins will be distributed to offices in RSS starting in the summer of 2012 to gauge the effect that individual bins have on use. After evaluation of the pilot-program, the Office of Sustainability plans to continue with a larger test this fall, and full scale rollout there after.
“Full-scale recycling is still in the beginning stages on campus. This grant will help us to increase our diversion rate of recyclable materials, saving valuable material from the landfill,” said Jen Jones, graduate assistant at the Office of Sustainability.
Brian Fisher, director of the Office of Sustainability added, “This project will help build community involvement and understanding while changing behavior and attitudes. The assessment of the collections will serve as a metric to better under the difference each of us can make.”
“This grant provides colleges and universities with an easy way to boost recycling on campus and to instill students with a greater sense of obligation to recycle throughout their lives,” said Matthew M. McKenna, president and CEO of Keep America Beautiful. “We’re thankful for the support of the Alcoa Foundation, and for the company’s continued leadership in advancing recycling nationwide.”
Since 2008, The Alcoa Foundation has distributed more than 100,000 recycling bins, launched the “Make an Impact” program to help families live more sustainably, developed the free Aluminate™ recycling app, and, in the last five years, invested nearly $3.5 million in community-based recycling programs.
