Earth Day at MSU to Include Electronics Recycling, Film, Expo

Events begin at 11 a.m. Tuesday, April 22, with the unveiling of a recycling design campaign and a recycling bin design competition for students, along with food and fun to foster excitement about Earth Day and the message of environmentalism. Kick-off activities will take place on the Fain College of Fine Arts lawn off of Tee Pee Drive.

Also beginning at 11 a.m., ECS Refining will be on hand to help the community dispose of used electronics such as computers, monitors, televisions, printers, microwave ovens, telephones, power cords, and radios. 

As part of a EURECA (Enhancing Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities) project, graphic design students Royce Brock and Melody Gregory Campos, with faculty mentor and Assistant Art Professor Jennifer Yucus, will unveil a design campaign to educate the community on recycling bin locations in the Wichita Falls area. They have been working with Progressive Waste Solutions to create a recycling awareness campaign for the community. "A lot of residents still do not know that the orange bins around town are for recycling and that you don't even have to sort your recyclables," Yucus said. "This project has not only been a great opportunity to do something great for our community but also has given my students a real-world client to work with."

EURECA promotes undergraduate research by providing incentives and a support system for undergraduate students to engage in high-quality research and creative activities in an interdisciplinary environment. This design campaign developed through the program will be on display at the kickoff event and student designed T-shirts and reusable grocery bags will be given away.

During an Earth Day Mini-Expo from 6-7 p.m. at the Clark Student Center food court area, participants can engage with experts on water conservation, food sustainability, and reducing paper usage in activities. Representatives from several businesses and organizations will have displays to educate visitors on making better daily decisions related to the environment. Natural Grocers, Times Record News/Lifeline, Progressive Waste Solutions, and OrgSync (MSU Student Development & Orientation) are scheduled to participate.

At 7 p.m., the documentary Tapped will be shown in CSC Shawnee theater. This documentary is a behind-the-scenes look into the bottled water industry. 

The first Earth Day was celebrated April 22, 1970, when 20 million Americans demonstrated for a healthy, sustainable environment in coast-to-coast rallies. Thousands of colleges and universities organized protests against the deterioration of the environment. Separate groups that had been fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife now could organize in a common cause.

This year's Earth Day theme is "Green Cities." The Earth Day Network launched the Green Cities campaign in the fall of 2013 to help cities around the world become more sustainable and reduce their carbon footprint. Focused on three key elements - buildings, energy, and transportation - the campaign aims to help cities accelerate their transition to a cleaner, healthier, and more economically viable future through improvements in efficiency, investments in renewable technology, and regulation reform.

The MSU Earth Day programming is a collaboration between Progressive Waste Solutions and MSU departments and student organizations: American Society of Mechanical Engineers; Fain College of Fine Arts; Bolin College of Science and Mathematics, Engineering Department; Engineers for a Sustainable World; Geosciences Club; Bolin College of Science & Mathematics, Geosciences Department; Student Government Association; Student Development & Orientation; Tri-Beta; and the University Programming Board.