A student-powered effort at Knox College is diverting a mountain of residence hall reusables and recyclables from being thrown away at the end of Spring Term.

At the same time, the College's 2015 Commencement was close to #ZeroWaste. Events that drew more than 1,000 family, friends and visitors to campus -- along with a graduating class of some 300 students and several hundred faculty and staff -- generated just 5.5 pounds of landfill-bound discards.

More than 90% of the Knox Class of 2015 signed the Graduation Pledge of Social and Environmental Responsibility: "I pledge to explore and take into account the social and environmental consequences of any job I consider and will try to improve these aspects of any organizations for which I work."

A crew of students and College staff launched into the reuse/recycling initiative nearly two weeks before residence halls closed on June 7. They distributed collection boxes and then sorted through materials that in past years would likely have been carted to the local landfill.

"I was already interested in conservation of energy and water," said Sofia Tagkaloglou, an environmental studies major, chair of the Knox College Student Senate Committee on Sustainability, and one of the students who helped organize the year-end recycling with the Office of Sustainability.

"Now I have a real understanding of just how much stuff we bring and how much we accumulate through the year -- stuff that seniors leave behind, but new students and people in the community will be able to use."

Top of page: Students collect recyclables, reusables from residence halls, including the Asian Cultural House; Above: recycling filled trucks for delivery instead of trash dumpsters for the landfill, green ribbons at commencement showed support for the Graduation Pledge of Social and Environmental Responsibility. More photos from Waste-Free Move Out and other campus recycling initiatives in an album on the Knox Flickr site.

Highlights of Year-End Recycling, Waste Free Move Out, #ZeroWaste Commencement

• 272 graduating seniors sign the Graduation Pledge of Social and Environmental Responsibility
• Hundreds of pounds of food donated to community organizations: Safe Harbor Family Crisis Center, Galesburg Rescue Mission
• Textiles donated to the Renew Thrift Store and Benevolence Center, used bedding to the Knox County Humane Society Animal Shelter
• More than 20 students work in collecting, sorting, transporting and distributing of recyclables/reusables