College is one of the few environments where certain habits will be carried throughout students' lives, so it's no accident that planners at Marshall University are going out of their way to instill the practice of regular recycling. According to The Parthenon, the sustainability department at the university has taken broad steps to improve the recycling capabilities of dorms, academic buildings and cafeterias to help reduce the students' carbon footprints on campus.

"We need to make the change ourselves," Kaitlyn Rhodes, a junior international affairs major at Marshall, told the news source. "We need to be more aware of the consequences of our actions and know the effects we have on the environment."

Recycling comes at no cost to the students and is completely hassle-free. Plastic and paper containers are on every floor of the dorms that are cleaned by custodians every day. Additionally, the university has a work force of volunteer student recyclers that collects and sorts the recyclable material and brings it to the proper receptacles.

"It has reduced trash collection majorly because that material is being diverted from being trash and going into landfills, to being recycled," Margie J. Phillips, sustainability manager for Marshall University, told the news source. "It has increased every year that we've done it."

In addition to making things easier on students at their residence halls and academic buildings, the recycling volunteers also help out at school football games to clean up parking lots and provide tailgaters with recycling bags. The recycling program has been a boon for the university and has helped to reduce trash hauling costs significantly. As an added bonus, the increased recycling rates will help to create a greener and more sustainable community for years to come.