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Students Build Mound Of Bottles For ‘Recyclemania’ Project
< < Back to students-build-mound-bottles-recyclemania-projectA large pile of empty bottles and containers might seem like trash to most people, but to a group of Ohio University students, a large mound of plastic that sits in the center of campus sends an important message.
Over a four week period, OU students piled hundreds of bags filled with thousands of bottles betwen wooden posts at the university's Howard Hall site to demonstrate that recycling one insignificant bottle can make a significant change. The project is called "It All Adds Up."
"The idea is that every small action adds up to large change so it might seem like an insignificant option of 'Am I going to recycle this bottle or am I not going to recycle it?' Over a pretty small time period of four weeks adds up to this massive amount of plastics," said Andrew Ladd, manager of OU's recycling and refuse department.
Recyclemania started in 2001 as a competition between OU and Miami University, but has since extended to more than 600 universities.
Sasha Milliken, an OU student who is involved with the Recyclemania project, said that demonstrations like this show students just how much recycling can make a difference.
"Things are just so different between when you have your one little container and then when you see what happens when everybody with their one little container puts that together," she said.
Ohio University recycles over one million pounds of plastic in just 16 weeks.
The sculpture is expected to be torn down on Friday afternoon.