There were many games for carnival goers, such as Coffee Cup Toss, Plinko, Sort Recycling, Knocking Cans Down, and more. We also had some great crafts at the craft table that utilized old CDs and their cases that were donated to us by the campus radio station. The CD cases were made into keepsake boxes and the CDs were used to make decorations. There was also a craft that used a yogurt cup, some string, and bottle caps to make a wind chime!

Overall, the carnival was successful and made a positive impact on the campus and community by educating people about recycling and the benefits of reusing items to make new things. To see more photos from this event become a fan of the “New Paltz Recycles” Facebook page or follow this link: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151351385152750.1073741828.195052437749&type=1

The next project for Recycling Club is Reuse to Reduce. Reuse to Reduce is an annual program that has been at SUNY New Paltz for over four years. This program aims to collect any and all usable materials from students as they move out of the residence halls at the end of the school year. There will be boxes for: clothing, unopened food, school supplies, books, towels and linens, electronics, and miscellaneous items. There will be boxes in each of the residence halls and the Student Union Building. The items are donated to local charities.

The rest of the items will be given away at a community give away on May 18th from 7:30am to 8pm at the United Methodist Church on the corner of Main St and Grove St.

We are looking for volunteers on May 17th to help move out the stuff. Even an hour can help! If you’re interested please email: newpaltzrecycles@gmail.com.

I’m sorry for this update being a little late, we have been excitingly preparing for the Earth Day Carnival! I am a little sad to announce that the 2013 RecycleMania tournament ended on March 30th. Since the week before the final day was SUNY New Paltz’s spring break that week is not counted in the overall standings of the competition because a majority of the student population left the campus for the week.

Here are the results of Week 7 of RecycleMania:

1st place: Lenape Hall with 4.57*

2nd place: Capen Hall with 4.56*

3rd place: College/Shango Hall with 4.38*

4th place: Esopus Hall with 4.35*

5th place: Bliss Hall with 4.28*

6th place: Scudder Hall with 4.27*

7th/8th place: Bevier Hall and Crispell Hall with 4.22*

9th place: Deyo Hall with 4.19*

10th place: DuBois Hall with 4.16*

11th place: LeFevre Hall with 4.13*

12th place: Bouton Hall with 3.70*

13th place: Gage Hall with 3.67*

FINAL RECYCLEMANIA RESULTS: (These are the cumulative results of 7 weeks)

1st place: Capen Hall with 29.38*

2nd place: Lenape Hall with 28.99*

3rd place: Esopus Hall with 27.87*

4th place: College/Shango Hall with 27.59*

5th place: Bevier Hall with 27.53*

6th place: Scudder Hall with 27.52*

7th place: Bliss Hall with 27.47*

8th place: Crispell Hall with 27.27*

9th place: Deyo Hall with 26.94*

10th place: DuBois Hall with 26.80*

11th place: LeFevre Hall with 26.46*

12th place: Bouton Hall with 24.24*

13th place: Gage Hall with 24.08*

This year’s competition was so close! I want to thank Recycling Club, Facilities, Residence Hall Student Association and everyone else who helped make this year’s competition the best one yet!

Next on the Recycling Club agenda is the Earth Day Carnival! This is the 4th year we’re having this event and we think this year will  be the greatest because we are finally having it actually on Earth Day! We will be having lots of fun and recycling-related games that anyone can play to win tickets and put those tickets towards some great prizes. We are looking for organizations to run our game booths so if you’re involved on campus and would like to help out with the Earth Day Carnival then email us at: newpaltzrecycles@gmail.com, we would love to have you! Even if you can’t run a game booth you should come to the Earth Day Carnival and bring your friends! We’ll also be having live music by DJ Hittamixxx and free popcorn and cotton candy!

See you there!

Here are the residence hall scores for Week 6:

1st place: Capen Hall with 4.5*

2nd place: Shango/College Hall with 4.49*

3rd place: Esopus Hall with 4.46*

4th place: Lenape Hall with 4.26*

5th/6th place: Crispell and Bliss Hall with 4.17*

7th place: Scudder Hall with 4.13*

8th place: Bevier Hall with 4.09*

9th place: Deyo Hall with 4.08*

10th place: Dubois Hall with 4.05*

11th place: Lefevre Hall with 4.00*

12th place: Bouton Hall with 3.66*

13th place: Gage Hall with 3.64*

* = a combination of recycling per person in the residence halls and composting from Hasbrouck Dining Hall

Another recycling-related event was The Green Life event hosted by Recycling Club this past Monday night. This event was modeled after The Game of Life but with a sustainability theme. Eight different clubs and organizations competed against each other for the grand prize, a $200 Visa gift card, along with smaller gift cards as the rewards to challenges. There was free food from campus catering services and KDPhi NAS ran Alex’s Lemonade Stand and all of the proceeds go to a great charity. The event very successful and teams seem to have a fun time playing through our version of life. We held two rounds of the game to allow more organizations to participate and the winning organizations are the Geology Club and Autism Speaks. Thank you to everyone who made this event a success! To see more pictures from this event go to Facebook and become a fan of the “New Paltz Recycles” page!

One last thing, Recycling Club is proud to announce that we will be having the 4th Annual Earth Day Carnival on Earth Day(April 22nd) this year! The event will be from 4pm to 7pm on the SU Concourse (weather permitting). So mark your calendars!

In Week 4 we recycled 4,735.6 pounds of materials!

Thank you to everyone who has been recycling and to RHSA for being great supporters of this competition!!

Week 4 Scores:

1st place: Capen Hall with 4.42*

2nd place: Lenape Hall with 4.21*

3rd place: Bliss Hall with 4.13*

4th/5th place: Scudder Hall and Crispell Hall with 4.10*

6th place: Bevier Hall with 4.08*

7th/8th place: Deyo Hall and DuBois Hall with 4.05*

9th place: College/Shango Hall with 4.04*

10th place: Esopus Hall with 3.98*

11th place: LeFevre Hall with 3.97*

12th place: Bouton Hall with 3.61*

13th place: Gage Hall with 3.55*

Week 5 Scores:

1st place: Capen Hall with 4.76*

2nd place: Lenape Hall with 4.65*

3rd place: Bliss Hall with 4.44*

4th place: Scudder Hall with 4.39*

5th place: Bevier Hall with 4.37*

6th/7th place: Crispell Hall and DuBois Hall with 4.33*

8th/9th place: Deyo Hall and Esopus Hall with 4.32*

10th place: College/Shango Hall with 4.27*

11th place: LeFevre Hall with 4.24*

12th place: Bouton Hall with 3.91*

13th place: Gage Hall with 3.87*

* = pounds of material per person which include composting from Hasbrouck Dining Hall

The first three weeks have flown by! This year’s tournament is a close race with some of the halls having a difference of 0.01 pounds per person between their weekly scores so every piece of recycling counts!

This past week in RecycleMania RA Ryan of Bouton Hall held a program on how to make piggy banks out of plastic bottles. By using a reusable coffee cup you can save up to $0.30 per coffee so you can use your new piggy bank to hold all of the money you’ll save by reusing. Recycling Club will be hosting a coffee cup consumption demonstration on March 7th from 10am to 2pm so stay tuned for the location! We will also be giving away FREE reusable coffee mugs!

Week 3 Scores:

1st place: Lenape Hall with 3.97*
2nd place: Capen Hall with 3.92*
3rd place: Esopus Hall with 3.75*
4th place: Bliss Hall with 3.65*
5th place: Bevier Hall with 3.59*
6th place: Crispell Hall with 3.56*
7th/8th place: Deyo Hall and Scudder Hall with 3.54*
9th place: DuBois Hall with 3.51*
10th place: LeFevre Hall with 3.50*
11th place: College/Shango Hall with 3.49*
12th place: Bouton Hall with 3.13*
13th place: Gage Hall with 3.04*

* = pounds per person (including compost from Hasbrouck Dining Hall)

The following numbers are a combination of the recycling per person in each hall and an equal amount of composting added to each hall’s score from Hasbrouck Dining Hall.

During Week 1 of RecycleMania 2,549.3 pounds of material were recycled! In Week 2 there were 2,666.4 pounds of material recycled! Each week we’re improving so keep on recycling!

Week 1

1st place: Bevier Hall with 3.88

2nd place: Lenape Hall with 3.75

3rd place: Crispell Hall with 3.55

4th place: Capen Hall with 3.52

5th place: College/Shango with 3.48

6th place: Esopus Hall with 3.41

7th place: Deyo Hall with 3.37

8th place: Scudder Hall with 3.36

9th place: Bliss Hall with 3.35

10th/11th place: DuBois and LeFevre Hall with 3.33

12th place: Gage Hall with 3.20

13th place: Bouton Hall with 3.13

Week 2

1st place: Scudder Hall with 3.73

2nd place: Capen Hall with 3.70

3rd place: Esopus Hall with 3.60

4th place: Lenape Hall with 3.58

5th place: Bliss Hall with 3.45

6th place: College/Shango Hall with 3.44

7th place: Deyo Hall with 3.39

8th place: DuBois Hall with 3.37

9th place: Crispell Hall with 3.34

10th place: Bevier Hall with 3.30

11th place: LeFevre Hall with 3.29

12th place: Gage Hall with 3.11

13th place: Bouton Hall with 3.10

If you would like to get more involved with RecycleMania and recycling awareness on campus then join Recycling Club! We meet on Mondays at 7:30pm in SU 407 and anyone is welcome to join at any time!

Today is the first day of the RecycleMania 2013 tournament!

This is the 5th year of the tournament at SUNY New Paltz and there is an exciting changes this year. The difference between last year’s competition and this year’s RecycleMania is the residence halls now have single stream recycling! This means that all recycling goes into one bin (no sorting!). The new bins are green with a yellow top. Some residence halls still have the blue bins but they are also single stream bins now. An important thing to remember with this new kind of recycling is that there is still no trash allowed in the bins!

FACT: If a recycling bin has more than 10% contamination (trash, food, etc. ) then the contents of the bin need to be thrown out.

What to put in the single stream recycling bins:

• Cans,  glass, bottles (without the caps)
• Plastics with #s 1, 2, 4, 5, and 7
• Paper products (including paperboard like cereal boxes, paper towel rolls, etc.)
• Cardboard

What NOT to put in the single stream recycling bins:

• Orange juice or milk cartons
• Pizza boxes
• Black plastic containers
• Plastic bags
• Food
• Chip bags and candy wrappers (those go in the Terracycle bin!)

Also, any electronics, batteries, and old lightbulbs can go to the RA office in your residence hall.

RecycleMania starts today and goes to March 30th so get involved!

There are many ways to get involved with the RecycleMania tournament starting with recycling as much as you can! Even if you do not live on campus you help SUNY New Paltz everyday by recycling on campus. If you do live on campus, attend a RecycleMania themed program or you could even start your own! Another way to get involved is to join Recycling Club! We meet every Monday at 7:30pm in SU 407 and we’re having a General Interest Meeting on February 11th. Anyone could join at anytime so don’t worry if you can’t make it to the General Interest meeting. We will also be tabling outside of SU100 Monday and Tuesday from 11am to 2pm and we’ll be at the Club and Involvement Fair this Thursday from 11am to 3pm!  Hope to see you there and good luck recycling!

With each new year a lot of us are trying to make some positive changes in our life and there are some minor, recycling-related changes that could really make a big impact!

Some ideas are:

• Bring your lunch to school or work. You can use Tupperware and they even make reusable sandwich bags that can be cleaned and used again!

• If you need to choose paper products like toilet paper or paper towels then choose ones made from recycled paper and save some trees!

• Use a reusable water bottle. By not buying bottled water you’re saving money too!

• Once the weather is nicer, ride a bike to work or school. A good way to relax, enjoy nature and help preserve it.

• Recycle old chip bags and candy wrappers through the Terracycle program. There are bins in every residence hall and most academic buildings.

• Bring your own reusable coffee mug when buying coffee or hot chocolate. Coffee is only $0.95 when using a reusable cup as opposed to $1.70 when using a disposable cup.

• Wash out all of your recycling and take the caps off of bottles before putting these items in a recycling bin.

• Recycle more paper like receipts, old paper bags, and junk mail.

• Go paperless with your schoolwork this semester and bring your computer to class with you to write notes and look up readings for class without having to print them out.

• Re-purpose something that no longer has a use. For example, Recycling Club found a way to make a box out of old CD cases which can be used to store desk supplies or anything that will fit!

• Bring a fork and knife with you when eating on campus instead of using disposable flatware.

These are just a few ideas so comment on this blog post with your ideas for recycling resolutions!

These small changes help to reduce our carbon footprint!

This past Tuesday was Recycling Club’s first Recycled Craft Night! This was an event where people could make their own crafts out of recycled or used items. The crafts included making bracelets from old coffee cups, keepsake boxes out of old cd cases, decorative door flowers from plastic cups, and more!

The event was lots of fun for everyone and included a presentation on upcycling from one of Recycling Club’s vice presidents, Melissa. We thank everyone who came to or helped out with the event and hope to see you at our next event!

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Reuse Center

This past Wednesday was the grand opening of the New Paltz ReUse Center. This new center is a division of the New Paltz Recycling Center and was funded by grants from both the DEC and the EPA. This center was opened as part of New Paltz’s commitment to become a zero waste community. The center takes old or extra/unwanted items from local businesses or residents and sells them at a low price, similar to a large scale garage sale.

This center is a great addition to the community and especially the campus community. This center is a new resource for students, such as art majors who could use the supplies for sculptures or any student who may be looking for some furnishings for a new apartment.

The center is open Tuesday through Saturday from 9am to 4:30pm and the phone number is (845) 255-8456. This ReUse Center was made possible by many volunteers and the passion of those at the New Paltz Recycling Center. So go check it out and spread the word!

Also, here is the Facebook page for the New Paltz Recycling Center:

http://www.facebook.com/newpaltz.recycling?fref=ts

We aim to promote the idea that you can upcycle used items to make a whole new and useful product. To further promote this idea we are having a live sculpture contest! The winner will receive a gift card to Manny’s; to enter or find out more information please email: newpaltzrecycles@gmail.com.

This event should be lots of fun and is totally FREE! We will also be having snack food and drinks too! So come and bring a few friends and get crafty! Here is the Facebook page for the event: http://www.facebook.com/events/403354239718721/?fref=ts

Recycled Craft Night is Tuesday October 23rd from 7pm to 9:30pm in SU 62/63!

Hope to see you there!