Mother Nature lost to the tailgaters Saturday.Even though the Environmental Conservation Organization at LSU handed out 200 blue recycling bags to tailgaters during the day as a part of 350.org’s International Day of Climate Action, the organization’s volunteers only gathered 20 to 25 bags by the end of the day.”It’s not our job to sort [recyclables from] the trash [of other tailgaters],” said Matt Wyatt, ECO at LSU co-vice president and natural resource ecology and management sophomore. “We need to focus more on education.”Wyatt said the teams of ECO volunteers were handing out the bags, and the other tailgaters seemed receptive to the idea of recycling their gameday garbage. He said the older tailgating population was more responsible with recycling than the younger student population.”Sometimes [the students] wouldn’t really talk to us and throw a can in the trash right next to us,” Wyatt said. “There are some apathy issues.”Katherine Boy Skipsey, ECO at LSU co-vice president and mass communication sophomore, said it is difficult to compliment the lifestyles of college students with sustainable living.Jordan Bantuelle, biology senior and ECO member, said he wants to expand on educating the student body about helping the environment.”Students have an out-of-sight, out-of-mind mentality,” Bantuelle said. “They throw something away, and they don’t think about it sitting in a landfill forever.”Bantuelle said putting the word “landfill” next to or on trash cans could make people think twice about throwing certain products away.”We can’t continue to throw things away like we do,” he said.Even though most student tailgaters were receptive but not responsible with recycling on Saturday, AJ Sylvia, petroleum engineering senior, said he appreciated ECO’s cause and wanted to help. Sylvia said once he learned what could be recycled, the process was easy.Andres Harris, Facility Services solid waste recycling manager, arrived at the tailgate with a bag of recyclables in hand.”Any effort to bring awareness and get tailgaters to be more environmentally friendly is a plus,” Harris said. “Sometimes [tailgaters] forget about recycling. It depends on the maturity of the tailgating age.”Harris said the city parish donated 2,200 green buckets to the University’s recycling efforts.Claire Bernard and Lynette Darbonne tailgated next to ECO. They said the University does a great job with trash control on game days.Bernard said they saw “a sea of trash” covering the University of Georgia’s campus when they went to the LSU-Georgia game. She said recycling is easy as long as the University takes the recycling where it needs to go.Contact Mary Walker Baus at [email protected]