I was sitting in Central Classroom last Tuesday, anxiously anticipating the start of my first class of the quarter, when something very disturbing caught my attention.

I don’t know why I looked up and witnessed this at the moment I did; I suppose it was fate. This guy, with his faded pair of TOMS and black-rimmed spectacles, had the audacity to walk past me with a water bottle and a stack of papers and throw them in the trash.

You may be thinking: Uh, yeah. Right. That’s what you do with trash. You throw it in a trash receptacle, Kate.

Wrong! Wrong! It’s all wrong!

A lonely, hungry hero stood tall next to the full-bellied trashcan. His name read valiantly: the handy “ALL IN ONE” recycling bin. Wait, he wasn’t standing next to the can. He was literally attached to it.

I could almost hear its stomach growling, saying, Feed me! You know we have an obesity problem in this country when even our trashcans are fat.

Really, man, you’re that lazy? You’re even wearing TOMS. Doesn’t that mean you’re, like, a socially responsible person? The recycling bin is six inches to the left. Is your aim off or something?

I wanted to ask him what his rationale was for blatantly not recycling those items when the university spends so much time and money providing us the tools to do so.

If you take a look at the website (sustainability.osu.edu) you can even look up all the details. Those “all in one” containers were funded by a grant from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to provide students a simple way to recycle materials, saving the university money on material disposal costs.

It’s not all about the costs, however. The bulleted points are really simple motivators if you’re on the fence about recycling. Moving your aim six inches to the right when throwing things away can conserve energy and reduce greenhouse gases.

How does recycling conserve energy, you ask? Elementary, my dear Watson.

Here’s a fun fact taken from the Facilities Operations and Development website: it takes more energy to make products from virgin materials than it does recycled ones.

I know a lot of people who are not keen on the whole “sustainability” thing, but I don’t entirely understand them. What’s the harm? The bins are there.

By all means, I don’t mean to single out this poor guy who just happened to be neglecting his ability to recycle. I was discussing this with a friend last week that is active in the student recycling community and we both agreed it happens all the time. Luckily, there are lots of active student volunteers who pick up some of the slack.

This past football season, students participated in a new group called “Zero Waste Ohio Stadium.” The Students for Recycling webpage discusses the meaning of the term, stating, “zero waste means that 90 percent of the waste stream created during each game will be diverted from the landfill through the use of recycling.” Ninety percent? Isn’t that incredible? Imagine the amount of waste that could be diverted from the landfill if we used “zero waste” habits in our everyday lives.

So I challenge you, fellow OSU students, to keep in mind how much your contributions can help the cause, no matter how simple. For those of you who have classes Tuesday and Thursday mornings in Central Classroom, think twice next time you throw something in that trashcan that could be reused. If it helps you consider to do so, just remember … I’m watching you. That should be motivation enough.