The University of Massachusetts is now available in mug form.
The Office of Waste Management (OWM) and Dining Services are co-sponsoring a program intended to reduce the amount of disposable cups in the University’s trash.
The mugs feature the UMass logo and the Minuteman, who reminds students that “Only U Can Prevent Waste.”
“That’s the message. It’s not too complicated,” OWM General Manager John Pepi said. “Hopefully it will catch on.”
A similar program at the University of Wisconsin at Madison sold over 35,000 mugs and saved 400,000 Styrofoam cups, Pepi explained. Dan Yagudin, a senior Economics major, came up with idea for UMass’ own U-Mug.
“I just saw cups being wasted. People drink and then throw them away. At the University of Wisconsin they saved almost half a million cups,” said Yagudin, who works for OWM. “We use both paper and Styrofoam, but why waste it when you can use reusable ones?”
And UMass uses a great deal of paper and polystyrene cups.
“You can look at the trash stream coming out of the fast food places in the Campus Center and it’s loaded with cups,” Pepi said.
The U-Mug project has been in the works for some time, Pepi said, but that the real key was getting students to use them.
“It’s been a year or so in the making,” Pepi said. “We had heard of it, but we’ve been working since the spring on it.”
The mugs are on sale in the Campus Center and in the Hampden convenience store, and available in 16-ounce and 22-ounce sizes. As a further incentive to students to use the reusable containers, Dining Services is offering a discount to students who use the U-Mug.
Students can fill up their U-Mugs with coffee at the Franklin, Worcester and Hampden convenience stores and Hampden, Whitmore, and Physical Plant snack bars at a discounted price. The 16-ounce cup can be filled for 99 cents and the 22-ounce mug can be filled for $1.09.
The Office of Waste Management wanted the cups to be made from recycled materials, which posed a problem.
“We wanted recycled content in the cups, and only a few companies could do that,” Pepi said. “Only a handful could customize it and put the logo on it. They have the new logo, for people who want to broadcast that they go to UMass. The other side has the Minuteman character, who we have been cultivating as a Smokey the Bear – only you can prevent waste.”
The program is one of several undertakings by the OWM to rid the campus of disposable utensils, cups, and plates.
“We’ve been experimenting with biodegradable utensils. This is a part of the whole proposal. We’re talking about cuts on storage and costs. Michigan sold 35,000 mugs,” Pepi said. “The gist of the thing is that we want to provide an incentive for students to stop using disposables.”
Yagudin hopes this program will be as successful as previous programs, such as the Battery Recycling Program. His freshmen year Yagudin suggested that OWM set up collection points for batteries, rather than the previous system of mailing batteries to the recycling center.
The success of that program got Yagudin a job.
“At the time I was a student with an idea. Now I work there,” Yagudin said. “You start a small program here and even though it’s huge university, you can have an impact.”
