MONROE, LA – Keep ULM Beautiful hosted “Love the ULM Campus Cleanup” from April 22-25 as part of Love the Boot Week, Louisiana’s largest litter cleanup effort. Love the Boot Week is organized by Keep Louisiana Beautiful and supported by the Office of the Lieutenant Governor.
“I was surprised with how much litter we picked up along the bayou,” said Jarren Reed, a senior biology major. “Overall, I do think ULM does a great job of keeping the campus clean for its students.”
Participants met at Scott Plaza between 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. each day to begin the cleanup. Gloves, trash bags, and handheld grabbing tools were made available. Participants were allowed to select an area on the campus to walk through and collect litter.
"My group found plastics, random metals, bottles, paper, cigarettes, etc. I want to have more events like this to help support clean ecosystems and environments,” said Landon Littleton, a sophomore biology major. “I hope more students come out to help!”
“Over the course of the week, we had 75 participants,” said Andrew Hardee, Keep ULM Beautiful University Affiliate Coordinator. “They collected approximately 15 30-gallon trash bags of litter and debris and four 13-gallon trash bags of recyclable materials from the ULM campus and Bayou Desiard.”
For more information about Love the Boot Week, visit www.lovetheboot.org.
Additionally, Keep ULM Beautiful has been awarded a Keep Louisiana Beautiful (KLB) University Affiliate grant. This reimbursement grant will fund projects focused on sustainability, waste reduction, and/or litter prevention.
The 2023-2024 Keep ULM Beautiful project, a crucial step towards the group’s mission, involved installing water bottle filling stations in the lobbies of three traditional-style residence halls: Madison, Ouachita, and Masur. Since their installation just under two months ago, the filling stations have saved over 1,092 plastic bottles from entering the trash and landfills. The Office of Residential Life will continue to replace the filters and maintain filling stations, as well as provide ongoing education about water conservation and plastic reduction.
About Keep ULM Beautiful
Keep ULM Beautiful, formed in October 2022, is a Keep Louisiana Beautiful University Affiliate, which is a special mark of distinction and represents a commitment by the university to continual improvement in sustainability and environmental issues, promoting student environmental stewardship and engagement, and rigorous outcome measurement. Keep ULM Beautiful will pursue opportunities to improve the campus to meet the needs of the changing living and educational environment of students, faculty, and staff by encouraging litter abatement, recycling, and sustainability practices.