Division of Administration and Finance
University Services
Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Bethel Glumac
Green UH Intern
lmmarshall@uh.edu
Accounting Society Finds Way to Crunch the Cans
Houston, April 11, 2011 – Instead of sitting in
a meeting and crunching numbers, the
Accounting Society discovered the best
formula to collect as much recycling as
possible at this year’s RecycleMania
competition. They were one of the many
students groups that became competitive and
discovered new ways to collect the most. Ike
Boykin is the public relations officer of the
Accounting Society and one of a group of
officers that designated Wednesday as their
“collection” day.
“For RecycleMania, we have two outings:
Friday, where we do the weigh-ins, and
Wednesday, where we collect--that’s mostly officers though,” Boykin said. “The members can
bring in recycling whenever they want, but for the officers, that’s our day when we can walk
around campus and if someone knows of a place they are recycling at, we will go there.”
Their strategy for collecting recycling on campus was very proactive. Members of the group would
walk around campus to visit and collect from different recycling bins. Sometimes, their visits
would be timely and a recycling opportunity fell into their hands.
“Once, at engineering, they were getting rid of all their old textbooks and we collected those,”
Boykin said. “Whenever we see opportunity, such as someone throwing out paper or cardboard,
we take advantage of it.”
Outside of campus, members were encouraged to collect recycling from their home or work and
bring it to school. One member had a family member that worked for a hotel and the group was
able to collect recycling from there. Boykin knew that if they wanted to be competitive, they would
have to look into every possible place to collect. As public relations officer for the Accounting
Society, he deals with posting flyers around campus and updating the website. He believes that it
is important for student groups to get involved in RecycleMania.
“We did it last year and got a lot of good feedback from it so we wanted to do it again to give back
to our community,” Boykin said. “We are trying to be active at UH and also do community service,
so we decided to take this up.”
For the Accounting Society, Boykin said their hardest challenge was finding different places and
events to gather and collect recycling, as well as getting full commitment from the other members.
“The hard part is coming up with a game plan of where you are going to find the recycling and
trying to get people motivated to do the recycling,” Boykin said. “That was a task, but I’m glad we
were able to. At our meetings we mentioned it, telling people how important it was and just having
them come out.”
Despite the challenges, RecycleMania was an important part of the Accounting Society this
semester, and an even more important part of the campus as a whole. According to Boykin, it
showed that the University cares about the environment, as well as being another way to reduce
waste on the campus. It also didn’t hurt that there was a little friendly competition as well.
“I think it helps because it makes people who like a challenge, or who are competitive, want to do
more,” Boykin said. “It’s good because you don’t get stagnant. Even if you think you got enough,
you’re competing with someone; if they keep improving it’s going to make you want to keep
improving.”
After the competition closed, the larger impact of RecycleMania was seen in how the University is
rated compared to others. Boykin believes that programs such as these immensely improve UH’s
effort to be a school that actively works to give back to the environment and the students.
“It improves the University’s image,” Boykin said. “You have these people dedicated to a task that
isn’t that popular, trying to promote it. I think it makes us look like we’re dedicated to trying to
improve our city, environment, and everything about our status.”
To learn more about the results of this year’s RecycleMania and future events from the Green UH
department, visit www.uh.edu/green.
About the University of Houston
The University of Houston is a comprehensive national research institution serving the globally
competitive Houston and Gulf Coast Region by providing world-class faculty, experiential learning
and strategic industry partnerships. UH serves more than 38,500 students in the nation’s fourthlargest city, located in the most ethnically and culturally diverse region of the country.