Beautifying a space for waste

Sometimes even trash can become a work of art - or be the cause for one.

Students from the Residential Advisory Board and the Penn Environmental Group painted murals in the trash room in Ware College House and outside the Starbucks under 1920 Commons, respectively.

Students painted the murals on Jan. 26 and Feb. 2 in an effort to raise awareness about RecycleMania, the inter-collegiate competition to improve recycling habits, now in its second week at Penn. Facilities and Real Estate Services - one of the sponsors of RecycleMania - provided paint for the painting project, which was sponsored by Business Services and Penn Dining.

The mural outside Starbucks features a combination of the RecycleMania at Penn logo, PEG's logo and an original design by PEG member and College junior Katharine Cunningham.

As Quadrangle residents go to throw out their trash, they are greeted by a woodland scene and a portrait of Ben Franklin encouraging students to recycle.

PEG president and College junior Jennifer Tintenfass wrote in an e-mail that she hopes students will think to recycle their bottles after seeing the mural outside Starbucks.

RAB chairwoman and College sophomore Mara Gomes shared a similar goal, saying she hopes the murals will remind students to deposit their recycling in the appropriate chute. As an Upper Quad resident, Gomes said that trash in the recycling chutes has been a frequent problem.

Tintenfass also said she hopes the murals will raise curiosity about RecycleMania.

But in addition to advertising the competition, the murals are an effort to beautify spaces that would otherwise be ugly.

"You don't want a dingy recycle room," Business Services spokeswoman Barbara Lea-Kruger said.

Still, students say the murals emphasize function over form.

"This wasn't meant to be a very artistic endeavor," Gomes said. But she added that the project was "original," "fun" and "something we haven't tried before."

Penn Dining director Laurie Cousart said that the mural outside Starbucks will stay up until RecycleMania ends in April -- longer if nobody wants to paint over it. The Quad will remain until the end of the semester.

Later this semester, FarmEcology will be adding to the mural outside Starbucks to further promote RecycleMania.

Lea-Kruger is pleased with both PEG's and RAB's efforts. "The more signs [and] murals we can get about RecycleMania, the better," she said.

She added that since this is Penn's first year participating in the competition, "it's really about awareness and learning about RecycleMania as much as it is about the competition . and that's one of the reasons we chose murals."

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