Saturday, February 17, 2018

UTSA community to make an impact during Basura Bash

UTSA community to make an impact during Basura Bash

(Feb. 14, 2018) -- Students, faculty and staff from The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) will join the San Antonio community for Basura Bash, an annual all-volunteer event to clean the San Antonio watershed. UTSA volunteers will be cleaning up Maverick Creek on the UTSA Main Campus from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 17. The UTSA Office of Sustainability and students from The Green Society at UTSA will lead clean-up efforts.

“Basura Bash is the largest one-day waterway cleanup in Texas,” said organizer Sonia Jimenez. “We’ve continued growing over the past 20 years both in the number of volunteers and in the number of waterways cleaned.”

Basura Bash organizers emphasize that pollution is carried to rivers and creeks by storm drainage, run-off and careless human beings. This causes flooding, which risks lives and damages property. Items picked up include tires, traffic cones, metals, appliances, car parts, home items, bottles, cans, plastic bags and more.

“We hope to inspire students to adopt sustainable living practices and participate in environmental stewardship,” said Rebecca Deleon-Hutton, president of The Green Society at UTSA. “This event is an engaging and fun introduction to identifying litter in various environments. We hope that after Basura Bash, Roadrunners will grow a new set of eyes for recognizing litter, taking the time to pick it up, and later share their knowledge of helping keep UTSA beautiful.” 

Keith Muhlestein, UTSA sustainability director, has been involved with Basura Bash for 22 years  He urges everyone, “at work, at school, at home, and at the curb, to take a look at how much you’re tossing.”  

The event is powered entirely by volunteers, who have picked up 31.02 tons of recyclables over the event’s history. In 2005, the Basura Bash Planning Organization established a goal to slash the amount of trash in half that is collected at the event and then sent to the landfill, by separating recyclable items.  

“Much of what we conveniently toss in our work, school, and residential trashcan on a daily basis should not be tossed as trash but recycled as renewable and reusable resources,” said Jimenez.

Encouraging more people to recycle is also the theme of Recyclemania, a nationwide intercollegiate contest that UTSA participates in every year, and coincides with Basura Bash.

Basura Bash volunteers can register now then complete an Individual Safety/Liability Release Form and turn it in at check-in on Feb 17 located at the Brackenridge Ave. Lot 5 (BK5) on Main Campus.  Volunteers are urged to wear long pants, gloves, long sleeve shirts, sturdy, closed shoes, and sunscreen.  

- Melissa May


Get involved in Basura Bash and other recycling initiatives in San Antonio and at home.

Learn more about the UTSA Office of Sustainability.

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