Carbon footprints, renewable energy sources, going green, composting – these topics may not be familiar to the average student, but North Georgia junior Duane Kelley clearly understands their relevance to humankind’s survival.

Kelley, a transfer student from Young Harris College, was part of a group called Common Ground on that campus that taught environmental sustainability. The 20-year-old’s efforts helped garner a $10,000 grant to build learning and enrichment programs that involved the campus in environment-friendly practices. He plans to do the same thing at North Georgia within one year.

Kelley started small on Earth Day, April 22, by taking 13 trash bags from buildings across campus and separating the recyclable content.

“I want to combat waste management ignorance on campus and show how much we save by reusing, reducing and recycling,” says Kelley, who will graduate next May.

A group of students – five Charlie Company cadets and Kelley’s fiancé Ashley Crunkleton – sifted through more than 100 lbs. of trash for an hour, retrieving aluminum cans, plastic containers, paper and cardboard. Kelley weighed the trash bags before and after the recyclables were taken out, calculating that approximately 20 percent of the total trash was salvaged for recycling.

“When we were digging through the trash, certain recyclable materials were contaminated. I bet about 65 percent would have been recyclable,” says Kelley.

That telling figure is one of the reasons Kelley knows some action must be taken on campus. “Our imprint on this planet will be much less noticeable if we do,” says Kelley.

The political science major is on a new Student Government Association committee to study recycling, but he says that reducing the use of natural resources and reusing resources is a key part of the solution for sustainability.