Mother Nature’s efforts victoriousAccording to Mary Walker Baus’ article “Tailgating festivities overshadow ECO’s goal” in Monday’s issue of The Daily Reveille, Mother Nature lost to the LSU tailgating community. As a tailgater this past Saturday, I beg to differ.The article states that the defeat came when the volunteers of the Environmental Conservation Organization, ECO, collected only 20 to 25 of 200 distributed blue recycling bags. Retrieving all 200 bags was never ECO’s goal, which Baus acknowledged in Friday’s issue of the Daily Reveille when she reported, “Claire Ohlsen, ECO at LSU media coordinator, said ECO’s goal is to ‘educate tailgaters about what to recycle, why to recycle and how to recycle.”‘And educate is what we did. With solar-powered music, recycling, composting, and locally grown food at ECO’s tailgate, we showed how something as traditional as tailgating can be more environmentally friendly. We concentrated on recycling because it is the easiest way for people to do their part in conserving resources. Facility Services provides the bins and bags and collects them later.  All one has to do is choose where they throw their garbage.Contrary to the title of the article, ECO’s efforts were not overshadowed, and the final score between Mother Nature and tailgaters was not 25 of 200 bags collected. It was 10.41 tons of recycling retrieved from 70.48 tons of total waste.  That’s 17 percent of all of the rubbish gathered over the weekend conserved, or, to give you a better idea, the approximate weight of one killer whale, fifty tigers, or two Hummer H3s.  Victorious?  Definitely.Yet, the most vital point to be made is that the planet was not just in the minds of a few student volunteers on Saturday.  Across the world, people of all cultures, ages, ethnicities, and religions came together on October 24th to show their concern for their home planet, their only Earth.  If you would like proof, look at some of the 19,000 photos from 181 countries submitted to 350.org.  You’d be surprised at exactly how victorious Mother Nature was this weekend. Matt WyattECO@LSU Co-VP