By Matt Marango

After making its first appearance at Sustainability Day in October of last year, Group Recycling and Sustainable Solutions, also known as GRASS, became an official Recognized Student Organization in February. That same month, the group began a series of documentaries at the Rauch Planetarium. This featured “FLOW: For the Love of Water,” with co-producer Gill Holland as a guest speaker. In April, GRASS, in cooperation with the Student Art League, constructed a cube holding recyclable material found in dumpsters, setting it up in front of Ekstrom Library.  The group always seems to have something for students to do on campus to help the environment.
Recently, GRASS has set up a collection box for used cell phones in room W310 of the Student Activities Center, in partnership with ECO-CELL, a company that collects old cell phones and accessories to be recycled. GRASS hopes to collect at least 250 cell phones. The phones donated that are still usable will be given to women’s shelters around the city. Even phones that no longer work are of use. The metal within the phone will be recycled.
“This helps prevent the destruction of habitat in places like the Congo, where these metals are mined,” said Kaycee Stone, a junior biology and ecology major and member of GRASS. “The ECO-CELL project won’t just last for a month, but will continue throughout the school year.”
Tyler Lloyd, vice president and founder of GRASS, put the drive together at the beginning of the semester. At the Sustainability Fair last year, local-based ECO-CELL had a booth, and Lloyd took particular interest in it. He decided to start the project this year since the group needed funding and also wanted to be environmentally friendly.
“It started as a fundraiser,” said Lloyd, a senior biology and ecology major. “We get money back after we send the cell phone parts in to the company. So it’s really good on both ends.”
So far, the group has obtained 25 phones in the SAC bin. Most of this has been from word of mouth, so Lloyd hopes that he can promote the cause in other ways soon.
His fraternity has been offered a service hour for every phone they turn in.
“We hope to offer this to other Greek organizations also,” said Lloyd. “Hopefully, it will get more people to support all of our causes.”
Within this semester, GRASS members plan to have designated areas for the cell phone bins across campus. Lloyd wants the event to continue throughout the year.
The group has many more events to come. A dumpster dive will be held Saturday, Oct. 3. Members of the group will be sorting through the trash from a dumpster, to find recyclables. The documentary series that began early this year will continue, with “Mountaintop Removal” on Oct. 16, and on Nov. 10 with a film about the fail of electric cars in the United States titled “Who Killed the Electric Car?” According to the group’s Web site, they also plan to show a documentary about coffee production and fair trade, called “Black Gold,” and a film titled “YERT: Your Environmental Road Trip.”
GRASS has pages on Facebook and Twitter. Links to blogs and other environmental Web sites are posted on their Facebook page. They host meetings every third Tuesday of the month.
“It started out very small,” said Lloyd. “It was basically my group of friends. But I can see it expanding this year, which is so great for our cause and for the student body.”