Tim got his environmental footing as a member of Colton-Pierrepont Central School’s Environmental Club in Northern New York.  He is now a Freshmen at Western New England University in Springfield, MA.

When I moved into my dorm for my first semester of college, I realized that there was no recycling bin in my room.  This seemed appalling to me, so I made one of the two trash bins given to us a recycling bin for cans and bottles and put a box next to it to recycle paper.

Shortly after, I realized that there was no recycling bins anywhere in the whole dorm building, so I suggested to my RA that we get a system started! She loved the idea and put work orders in for recycling bins right away. Unfortunately, they took a little while to be delivered, but in the meantime, I convinced my friends to save their cans, bottles and paper until they came in.

Two weeks later the bins arrived and ever since then they seem to be overflowing with people’s recyclables.  Now, my roommate and friends often ask me now if something is recyclable before they throw it away and just the other day I heard a neighbor tell someone, “Hey, you should recycle that. We have it, so you might as well use it.”

It’s pretty amazing to know that sometimes all it takes is just a suggestion for something really great to happen.