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Paige Anderson was recently named the 2008 Recycling Student of the Year by the S. C. Department of Health and Environmental Control. The award recognizes a student who actively participates in a recycling program and who promotes recycling in school or the community.

“I’m honored to be chosen for the award,” Anderson said.

The English major has been a member of the Students for Environmental Education since she was a freshman. As a sophomore, she took on the challenge of collecting recyclable materials in Clinton, Belk, and Grotnes residence halls. Anderson collected the recyclable materials in the three buildings that house over 300 students.

Also as a sophomore, she helped organize and present during PC’s Earth Day celebration. The Roanoke, Virginia, native stays busy quietly advocating recycling and SEE.

“One of the main things people need to is to educate themselves about how we affect the planet and what they should do to avoid affecting it in harmful ways,” she said. “And that is what SEE tries to do--educate people about the environment.”

Last year, during her junior year, Anderson became SEE’s Recycling Coordinator and assumed organizing the recycling collection in all of PC’s residence halls. Every week, she helped collect recyclable materials and picked up materials that other SEE members placed in bags outside buildings across campus. Driving a campus services truck, she transported the materials to the City of Clinton’s recycling center.

“SEE is a very important organization,” Anderson said, “because people now have the power to seriously damage this planet, and we need to take this power seriously and be responsible with it.”

In addition to being a member of Students for Environmental Education, Anderson is a member of Celtic Cross, a group that provides PCUSA students with a supportive community where they explore the meaning of vocation and call as Christians engaged in the journey of faith.

PC is currently competing in ReycleMania, a ten-week competition among colleges and universities that promotes recycling and waste reduction. In addition, PC received grant funding from SC DHEC to enhance its recycling program on campus.