PERC Announces it’s 2021 Campus Sustainability Champions; Congratulations to ‘RayCycle
The Campus Sustainability Champion title is awarded to students, faculty, administrators, and staff of Pennsylvania colleges and universities who have made meaningful contributions benefiting social, economic and/or environmental sustainability on their campus, in their community, or in society at large. Contributions can be in areas of teaching, research, co-curricular programs, campus culture, community service, and campus operations, including food recovery.
Bucknell University Student Winners;
‘Raycycle initiative started out of Professor Kat Wakabayashi’s polymer engineering research lab in March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic closed the Bucknell University campus. Eight research students (Philip Onffroy, Riley DeBaecke, Brooke Dickey, Jeffrey Gibbs, Prism Li, Rain Lu, Haley Scopelliti, and Kalie Yuen) decided to come together (‘Ray Bucknell!) to innovate while quarantining at home. With the general public use of disposable plastics (takeout containers, plastic bags, online shopping packaging) on the rise during the pandemic, Team ‘Raycycle decided to raise awareness of the consumption behavior and do its part in collecting and recycling some of the plastic materials, based on their research expertise. The team asked the Bucknell and surrounding community to take advantage of the stay-at-home period to collect several types of post-consumer plastics waste: grocery checkout bags, packaging air pillows, soda bottle caps, and single-use coffee pods. These plastic materials are often rejected at municipal and commercial recycling centers due to their cumbersome shapes and potential contamination levels.
The community-driven plastics collection started in the spring of 2020, and through the summer, 3800+ pieces of plastics waste were pledged. When Bucknell campus reopened in fall of 2020, Team ‘Raycycle combined individual contributions and re-processed these “difficult-to-recycle” plastic waste into Bucknell Bison-themed products such as keychains and cookie cutters. The 100% recycled plastic products are given back to the individual community contributors as token of appreciation, and further given out to the rest of campus at sustainability and environmental awareness events and venues. The ‘Raycycle initiative was Bucknell’s community engagement at its best, backed by student motivation and University’s patented plastics processing technology.
For more information, see: https://raycycle.scholar.bucknell.edu