UNM should get creative to promote recycling bins

Editor,

I feel it is important that recycling become second nature for students, staff, faculty and community members who spend time on our beautiful campus.

Unfortunately, I've been woefully disappointed at the lack of attention recycling gets on campus. If you're a candidate running for a national office, do you try to gather supporters by penciling "vote for me" on a whitewashed wall? Of course not.

You put up big, colorful banners, hire bands and enlist celebrities to sing your praises. So why does UNM have pale, beige recycling repositories that disappear into the background? Why can't the UNM marketing department successfully advertise the growing availability of recycling bins on campus?

The solution may be as simple as painting the recycling bins bright green with bold logos, or it may take something more creative such as hiring marching bands, making the containers in the likeness of Lobo Lucy and Louie, or getting the headphones guy to sing the praises of not trashing soda cans. Like the campaigner who waves banners and gets his face plastered across the nightly news, recycling stations need to visually shout at passersby instead of being lost like scribbles on a wall.

Julie Kidder

UNM student