BY Melissa C. Moore
In April 1998 Georgia Tech held its first Earth Day celebration with a few booths along Skiles Walkway to remind the campus community to conserve and recycle.
This year the 10th annual Georgia Tech Earth Day celebration, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. April 20, will involve more than 60 organizations, including local and national groups like Trees Atlanta and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
In addition to the educational displays, the event will feature live music, food, recycling and free Earth Day T-shirts to contestants who complete a maze by answering conservation questions.
"Our theme this year is 'Make a Commitment,'" said Cindy Jackson, manager of the Institute's solid waste management and recycling program and Earth Day coordinator.
"We want people to commit to recycle and conserve beginning on Earth Day."
Partnering with Atlanta Recycling Solutions, Tech will collect electronic devices including personal computer hard drives, computer monitors, cell phones and, with a $10 donation, televisions.
"We want to accept televisions too," Jackson said. "However, televisions are one of those items that require more in terms of deconstruction and unfortunately it costs us to recycle them, making it necessary to ask for a $10 acceptance donation."
For the third year, Georgia Tech Earth Day is teaming with Nike-Reuse-a-Shoe and Georgia Tech athletics to "Shoot the Shoe."
"We set up a basketball goal and let people 'shoot' their old tennis shoes through the hoop," Jackson said. "It's a fun way to get rid of those old tennis shoes."
Nike takes the old tennis shoes and grinds them into usable materials for athletic surfaces like field turf and sports flooring.
An office supply exchange again will be offered and allows Tech to collect unused and unwanted office items like file folders, ink pens and paper from a campus department that doesn't need them and make them available to one that does.
"This past year we 'recycled' more than $17,000 worth of office supply items from Georgia Tech departments," Jackson said.
The fourth annual Environmental Leadership Award also will be presented at the Earth Day celebration to a Georgia Tech student, faculty, staff, alumnus or retiree who has made a positive impact.
Also, one person will receive a $500 check from The Coca-Cola Company for designing the 10th annual Earth Day T-shirt.
"Coca-Cola has been kind enough to sponsor our T-shirt design contest for the past two years," Jackson said. "The money is a real incentive and it's also nice for the winner to see his or her design on the T-shirts worn by people throughout the years.
"When we started planning this year's Earth Day, we realized there were other Georgia Tech departments and organizations also planning environmentally conscious events," Jackson continued. "We decided to call it Think Green Week."
Events scheduled between April 14 and 21 include a bluegrass music performance and a sustainability workshop. A complete listing may be found at www.ThinkGreen.gatech.edu.
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