Earth Angels: The Student

Rebecca Haskell's determination to expand recycling at BU is helping to add some green to the scarlet.

(Photo by Tanit Sakakini)

Just 20 years old, Boston University junior Rebecca Haskell already has a pretty good grip on the way big organizations work. "Because it's no one's job, it's no one's priority," says Haskell of recycling at BU. To remedy that, she has led a crusade to expand recycling efforts from mostly dormitories and offices to more academic buildings. And things are starting to change. "She's involved all over. She's a one-man army," says Thomas Daley, associate vice president of the university's physical plant department.

Haskell, who grew up in the San Francisco Bay area and now lives in Allston, noticed in her first year that there wasn't much recycling on campus, and she went to talk to the Office of Environmental Health and Safety, where she ended up with a summer job. Last fall, on her own, she approached assistant provost Michael Field, presenting him with a 15-page set of recommendations on expanding recycling into more academic buildings. The eventual results included a document on how offices and students could use less paper - now linked from the school's "Greening the Campus" website (bu.edu/green) - and the forming of a team of student volunteers who worked alongside Haskell to write up building-by-building proposals for expanding recycling.

The school's garbage and recycling contract was renegotiated this summer. And, according to Field, "we have recycling in more buildings than last year, and that's because of her. She was able to get attention focused."