May 10th, 2010
Pack It Up and Pass It On is underway

STAFF REPORT

Pack It Up and Pass It On, Texas State’s annual recycling event that allows students and the community to donate usable items that would otherwise go to landfills, is under way on and off campus.

Now in its ninth year, the program diverted more than nine tons of items from area landfills last year to people in need throughout the San Marcos area. The program encouraged local residents to join Texas State students in the community-wide effort by taking usable items and putting them into the hands of local residents who can use them.

“Pack It Up focuses on the ‘reuse’ of the three recycling R’s—reduce, reuse and recycle,” said Kim Porterfield, Texas State’s community relations director. “Pack It Up and Pass It On matches unwanted items that students normally throw away at the end of the semester with local needy citizens who can use them. It’s true recycling.”

Anyone with unwanted items in good condition can take them to the LBJ Student Center Ballroom May 17-19, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Student workers, funded through a grant from Texas State’s Environmental Service Fee Committee, are collecting items from residence halls on campus.

New to this year’s event is a pilot program in conjunction with Cabana Beach apartments in San Marcos. The university said the goal of the program is to ultimately expand Pack It Up and Pass It On into off-campus, multi-family housing within the surrounding community.

“Off-campus housing ends up with overflowing roll-out dumpsters around move out time,” Porterfield said. “That can often end up in parking lots and the surrounding neighborhoods. We know the program makes environmental sense. We want to find if it makes financial sense, too.”

Also coinciding with the Pack It Up and Pass It On event, the Texas State Residence Hall Association will conduct a food drive benefitting the Hays County Area Food Bank, collecting donations from students as they move out of residence halls.

Sponsors of this year’s event include the Texas State Community Relations Department, the Department of Housing and Residential Life, the United Way of Hays County, the PODs Corporation and Cabana Beach apartments. Volunteers are being sought for sorting on May 17 and 19 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Volunteers for distribution are needed May 20 at 6 a.m.

For more information, to volunteer or to make arrangements for earlier delivery to a storage POD on campus, contact Texas State Community Relations at (512) 245-9645 or visit http://www.txstate.edu/community/.