The "We Are" campaign is once again executing a project to prompt students to clean up newspapers by displaying a week's worth of trash in front of the HUB-Robeson Center today.
Missi Lau, Undergraduate Student Government's (USG) "We Are" campaign director, said today's newspaper initiative will be bigger and better than the last attempt on Nov. 19, with two newspaper structures instead of one, displayed in front of the HUB to raise student awareness of excessive newspaper trash on campus.
Kelly Herbst, campaign newspaper initiative chair, said the structures will display the large amount of trash gathered from the floors of classrooms.
Fifteen volunteers collected five night's worth of newspaper litter, and the Office of Physical Plant (OPP) gathered newspapers in the classrooms the volunteers could not enter, as well as from classrooms over the weekend, Herbst said.
"This time it is an actual representation of the newspapers in the classrooms," she said.
Paul Ruskin, OPP spokesman, said the university spends about $250,000 each year cleaning up newspapers and other trash left every day in classrooms.
"The extra trash we have to deal with makes us less efficient and ends up costing the university a lot more," he said. "The time it takes us could be better spent on activities such as cleaning the hallways and keeping the bathrooms in better order."
Herbst said she hopes students will be encouraged to pick up their newspapers when they see the amount of trash left in classrooms every day.
"I don't think many students realize that just leaving one newspaper on the floor contributes to a huge mess," she added.
Lau said in two weeks the campaign plans to have another weeklong collection so they can gauge student reaction to the program.
This event will kick off the "We Are" campaign's month of awareness aimed at changing attitudes in the Penn State community.
The campaign is also hoping to send letters to professors to have them encourage their students to take out their trash, Lau said.
She added that the speaker series to promote civility, which is part of the campaign, will continue with former USG President Ian Rosenberger on April 6.
Lau added that the campaign will be selling T-shirts and participating in Late Night Penn State.
