Recycling bins have been placed throughout the Sigma Epsilon house, as they sign on to be the first fraternity to work with the recycling program at the University of Memphis.
Eric Bourgeois, vice president of Sigma Epsilon, grew up in a recycling friendly household and decided it was time to bring more green awareness to campus. Looking for ways to set his fraternity apart, he thought pairing it with the recycling program would be a good opportunity.
“I thought working with recycling would be a great way to implement something that I was already familiar with,” Bourgeois said. “My parents worked in forestry, so I was already interested in being conservative.”
Two main recycling bins have been placed downstairs in the kitchen of the fraternity house, and are made specifically for single bin recycling. These types of bins take everything from metals, plastics, aluminum and paper. Smaller bins are placed throughout the house as well.
“I went to Maryland for my cousin’s graduation and saw they had huge dumpsters on campus that were decorated for Green Week,” Bourgeois said. “I then thought about bringing this same type of thing to Memphis. I’d like to do something like that on campus for basketball season or in the spring.”
The dumpster at the fraternity house used to be filled with flies. Now, since they have started recycling, the amount of flies swarming their trash has gone way down.
“When our dumpster used to pile up with flies, it was disgusting,” Bourgeois said. “Recycling helps. When you recycle the right way, it’s unbelievable how much less trash we have.”
Sigma Epsilon’s goal of pairing with the recycling program is to make people more aware of conservation. They hope that with the help of this program, U of M as a whole will start to recycle.
“It’s not that hard to put a water bottle in the recycling bin,” Bourgeois said. “It really doesn’t take a lot of effort. People are sometimes lazy and weary of change.”
Amelia Mayahi, acting sustainability coordinator of the U of M recycling program, has been working with Sigma Epsilon for the past two months on recycling. The program has labeled bins in the house so they know what to recycle, and has even supplied them with a pick up service for their recycling.
“We have given them 16 recycling bins,” Mayahi said. “We are hoping to do more events together with Sigma Epsilon within the year.”
The fraternity reached out to the recycling program and wanted to help them reach their goals for the year. They are the first fraternity to sign with the program, and have been on full board.
“We are willing to help them in any way we can,” Mayahi said. “We will help supply any organization.”
The recycling program is going to be at clean up events for the Mississippi River throughout the year. They encourage anyone to come and hope that by pairing with Sigma Epsilon, their mission on being green will spread.
