TUCSON, Ariz. – Recycling became second nature to Gabrielle Pinkwasser when she lived in the dorms.

When Pinkwasser moved into the Pi Beta Phi sorority house on the University of Arizona campus this year something just felt wrong about not having a designated bin to throw her paper into.

So at the start of the spring semester, Pinkwasser, the vice president of communications for Pi Phi , decided to bring recycling to the sorority houses through a “Go Greek!, Go Green!” campaign at the UA that has been met with success thus far.

“We hadn’t recycled before, so we thought that this was a really great way to not only get ourselves to do it but get the whole entire Greek system (to do so),” Pinkwasser said.

Pinkwasser and her sorority sisters from Pi Phi have brought cardboard recycling containers to all the sorority houses on campus at their own expense, ordering over 50 boxes in all, with each sorority home to at least three containers.

Plans are in the works to obtain a recycling dumpster between each house as well and eventually to bring recycling containers to the fraternity houses.

Last week Pinkwasser picked up all the recycling herself as part of a contest won by Delta Delta Delta, but in the future houses will be on their own to provide the service at their expense. Pinkwasser said that wouldn’t be too big of a deal as she expects the additional cost to be about $1 per person, which would be added to house dues.

“We just really want to get the Panhellenic recycling really just strong and going so that when we do move to the (fraternity) houses that it will be a nice system that will work,” Pinkwasser said.

Katie Fischer, the president of Pi Phi, said her sorority looked at the “absurd amount” of recyclable products her chapter threw away because it did not have a recycling program. Then Pinkwasser realized such an initiative could be easily implemented throughout Greek Life and decided to spearhead it.

“I think people aren’t aware of how much waste they’re producing, and when we looked at it we hadn’t had any idea,” Fischer said. “I think that it’s a really easy thing to do.”

When Pinkwasser stopped by the Alpha Epsilon Phi sorority next door, she found out that sorority already started recycling newspaper, regular paper, aluminum cans and plastic bottles at the beginning of the school year.

AEPhi’s house mom led that effort and has continued to see it through by bringing the recyclables to an appropriate center in Tucson.

“It’s really good for people who live in the house, especially at the end of the semester when we had all of our old papers, we’d just recycle them instead of throwing them away,” said Molly Abelman, AEPhi’s philanthropy chair. “So it’s just like if you want to recycle it’s really easy.”

Gary Ballinger , the program director for fraternities and sororities at the UA, said he’s glad Pi Phi took charge of the recycling program by encouraging the other sororities to do so.

“I think most people do it at home already, so they just do it kind of like second nature,” he said. “It’s not hard to get people to recycle.”

Pinkwasser learned that firsthand while filling her Ford Escape to the brim with recyclables from Tri Delta, the sorority that won last week’s competition.

Now it’s up to the sororities to keep on recycling before Pinkwasser eventually hopes to bring containers to the fraternity houses.

“It was really good to see that houses were actually making an effort and wanting to support us with this, because it’s an issue we should care about,” she said. “We need to start thinking about our habits."