Gateway

Issue date: 5/2/08 Section: News

On Wednesday, demonstrators urged the campus to decrease the usage of plastic bags by encouraging them to "Choose to reuse." (Jillian Whitney) [Click to enlarge]

Hosted by the UNO chapter of Eta Sigma Gamma, the demonstration educated students on reusing grocery bags. (Jillian Whitney) [Click to enlarge]

Professor David Corbin, dressed as Bag Monster, roamed the Pep Bowl. (Jillian Whitney) [Click to enlarge]

The Pep Bowl was made a little livelier and a little trashier Wednesday when a UNO professor dressed up with more than 500 plastic grocery bags, in an effort to emphasize the first two conservation R's - reduce and reuse.

"The goal is to really get people thinking differently. When you go to the grocery store they usually ask you, 'Paper or plastic?' and we're really trying to tell people it's neither," said Cammy Watkins, a Sierra Club organizer. "We want to start reducing and reusing and finally recycling … that's the last step, really, of that equation."

Health, Physical Education and Recreation Professor David Corbin covered himself with more than 500 plastic trash bags.

Corbin, in character as the antagonistic Bag Monster, roamed the Pep Bowl urging students to continue using plastic and other non-renewable sources.

"The bag monster is showing on average how many plastic bags one person uses a year … we need to stop that," said Bogueban Dogomanue, a graduate assistant in HPER.

Demonstrators also handed out fabric grocery bags as an alternative to paper or plastic.

"[Plastic bags] only work about five minutes. Then we get to rest on the beach, in a tree, clog up streams, go into animals," Corbin said as the Bag Monster. "We're going to rule the Earth. We want people to use more plastic, and these people here are trying to get people to use fabric bags."

Also on Wednesday, the university unveiled a campus sustainability Web site. The site lists several issues related to sustainability and UNO's steps forward in those areas.

Including issues like landscaping, recycling and energy, it also addresses how students, faculty and staff can participate in making UNO a greener campus.

But many students are already helping the university by organizing recycling programs, like the Scott's Recycling Program, as well as simply picking up trash on campus.

"I guess we were just sick and tired of all the garbage around campus, so we just decided to have an event in spirit of Earth Day and everything else going on," said Tom Waples, organizer of a campus cleanup. "We invited a bunch of groups on campus to help us out."

He said he hoped to continue the cleanups, something he believed students really wanted to be a part of.

"It seems like a lot of people don't know how easy it is to recycle in Omaha," Waples said. "The main thing is probably just making people aware."



Senior staff writer Jillian Whitney and contributor Eugene Kim contributed to this report.

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