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Recycled Batteries Accepted
What can you do with your batteries once they are out of power? They can be recycled. The Office of Physical Plant’s Environmental Health and Safety staff accepts used batteries.

Students, faculty, and staff can request delivery of a Battery Recycling Container by emailing Al Matyasovsky or calling 814-863-4719. When the Battery Recycling Container is full, please email Al and someone will pick it up on a regular Friday pick up day. This free service is provided by the Penn State Waste Management Team.

Batteries for the following items can be placed in the Battery Recycling Container:
  • Cell phone
  • Flash light
  • Camera
  • CD/DVD player
  • Laptop computer
  • TV remote control
Conserving off-campus is important too!
Off-campus students can benefit the community greatly by pitching in and doing their part in the energy conserving at Penn State. Since students renting apartments can see their energy consumption in a form of a monthly bill, they can be even more aware than those on-campus.

Here's a sample from the newest post in our internblog about conserving on- vs. off-campus:

“Inspired by the work I do at my internship (promoting energy conservation in the residence halls) I have compiled a list comparing how you can save not only on-campus but if you live off-campus:

On campus students DO actually pay for their wastefulness (25% of housing bill goes to energy costs). But there are plenty of ways to save. On top of all the suggestions on the Take Charge web site (www.takecharge.psu.edu) I have a few suggestions of my own...”

Check out the rest: http://takechargepsu.wordpress.com



The InternBlog for Take Charge
Keep up with the latest trends and thoughts from someone in the trenches. Visit takechargepsu.wordpress.com.

Take Charge Intern Blog Image





Tip of the Month
Reduce Your Shower Time
If every student who lives on campus at University Park reduced his or her shower by just five minutes, we would save 100,000 gallons of water each school year. That’s enough to fill five swimming pools and lower PSU’s carbon footprint by 18,980 pounds every year.

Get more tips >>

The Intern Blog
News
Penn State Expands its Recycling Collection
May 5, 2009

Writing tablet backs, and cereal and gift-type boxes can now be recycled at Penn State. As of this spring, Penn State began accepting paperboard in its mixed-office stream of recycling. This expansion of the types of products accepted will enable the University to increase the amount of waste presently diverted from our landfill, which at the present time is 53%. Paper goods (office paper, cardboard, and newspaper) represent 31% of the University’s waste stream and 35% of the national municipal waste stream.

“This is good news for our program,” said Al Matyasovsky, Manager of Penn State’s Recycling Program, “because it allows us to increase our waste capture, diverting paper from the landfill, and putting it into the recycling stream to be converted into new products.”

The paperboard should be clean, not soiled, and flattened before being placed into the Mixed Office Paper Recycling bins. Please remove any plastic liners as well.

For more information, please contact Al Matyasovsky at aem3@psu.edu

Congratulations!
These students took the Take Charge survey and won $25 in LionCash+.

Sophia Appiagyei
Joshua Guzman
Margaret Olin
ll Kyong Keil

Curtin and Stone Halls Top My 20 Challenge Results
The residents of Curtin and Stone Hall did the most to conserve energy during the My 20 Challenge. During the week-long event (Oct. 19 to 25) students turned off lights, shut down computers, and unplugged cell phone chargers in order to use less electricity and reduce their hall’s carbon emissions. In all, 14 residence halls combined to eliminate over 2000 pounds of carbon emissions during the challenge.

North Halls Repeats as Recycling Challenge Champs
Penn State residence hall students took part in the weeklong Great Recycling Challenge to see which residence area students were the best recyclers. During the school week of November 9, Office of Physical Plant employees separated recycled materials from trash and weighed it to determine the winner.


Take Charge Pen
Take Charge! is proud to present a pen made from completely biodegradable materials. >>

      small pen
The Pennsylvania State University

The Take Charge Program is part of the Finance & Business Environmental Stewardship Key Initiative.

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This page was last updated on Tuesday, September 23, 2008.