Two weeks after the Board of Aldermen shot down Alderman Hamp Beatty’s curbside recycling proposal, Emma Van Epps stood at the podium in an Old Main Academic Center classroom to lead the weekly Students for a Sustainable Campus meeting. 
After the club’s usual agenda and small groups, Van Epps introduced associate professor of architecture at Mississippi State University Alexis Gregory, who told members to continue pushing the City of Starkville toward curbside recycling.
Gregory, who also serves Ward 5 on the city’s planning and zoning commission, worked with Ward 5 Alderman Beatty to outline the recycling presentation. The associate professor explained the board meeting’s results to SSC members. 
She told the club to continue its momentum, using students’ voices to encourage the aldermen to reconsider their doubts about curbside recycling. 
“(Alderman Beatty) and I are hoping you’ll continue your pressure and try to make the city look bad,” Gregory said. 
SSC had planned a recycling protest for Earth Week, and Gregory suggested moving the rally up in the calendar.
“I love the idea of having a protest, maybe earlier than Earth Day,” Gregory said, “because (Alderman Beatty and I) were just talking about, hopefully, if we can get things to work, maybe starting curbside recycling for Earth Week, something like that.”
Before that, though, the board will have to approve the motion to reinstate curbside recycling. 
Alderman Beatty said Gregory’s assistance with the curbside recycling proposal strengthened his research. He said she and SSC’s assistance transformed the potential of his proposal. 
Alderman Beatty credited SSC with “reviving” the curbside recycling idea. 
“They kind of put it back on us that we’re the only Southeastern Conference host town that did not have curbside recycling,” Beatty said in an interview with The Reflector. “They brought up some very pertinent, important facts, information that, you know, we needed to take a look at.”
Beatty said he had thought of reinstating the program beforehand, but SSC’s comments to the board urged him to work on an official proposal. 
Van Epps has also worked alongside sanitation services director Christopher Smiley to guide SSC’s outreach. However, SSC works with a limited number of city employees, so Van Epps said clear explanations to the aldermen strengthen curbside recycling’s case. She noted Beatty’s proposal was not the program’s end goal but rather the stepping stones that lead to the bigger picture. 
“So, I think communicating to the board that this is a start-up — like this is not the great, long, decades-later — this is not the long-term plan for recycling,” Van Epps said. “This is just the preliminary ‘getting the process reinstated’ plan. 
Beatty said board members’ personal opinions might influence their disapproval of curbside recycling. He said he is presenting a new plan a board meeting that readjusts sanitation fees. 
While aldermen raised concerns for the program at their last meeting, Van Epps said she is not losing hope. She said Alderman Beatty’s support of curbside recycling motivated SSC members.
“Being able to know that we had at least one alderman working with us directly to … help influence some of the other aldermen and show them the kind of research that we’ve been doing and kind of present it in a more official way was very encouraging to us,” Van Epps said in an interview. 
Alderman Beatty said he was also grateful to work alongside SSC because the city was growing and needed to evolve with its growth. 
“I’m glad they are pushing us,” Beatty said. “because it … kind of pushes us out of our comfort zone, comfort level. We’ve gotten comfortable with this drop off thing, and I think we just kind of settled into it.”
Made up of students, SSC members are spread between classes, extracurriculars, jobs and social functions. Van Epps said working with professionals and community members helped magnify the club’s voice. 
“So, that’s where a lot of our help, through professors like Alexis Gregory at the university, and just people in the community supporting our cause have been really critical,” Van Epps said. 
Interested in science from a young age, Van Epps said her love and devotion to caring for the environment formed from when she was Girl Scout who spent time outdoors with her family and friends. 
“I’m not motivated to, like, recycle and, like, have a better environment for myself … I think of it more like planting a seed that I might not get to see sprout,” the junior biomedical engineering major said, “but it is fulfilling to be part of the process that would provide better opportunities and a more sustainable environment for future generations.”
Beatty agreed, saying his five-year-old grandson’s future motivated him to take a vested interest in the environment. 
Throughout the many meetings and discussions of recycling, Van Epps, Gregory and Alderman Beatty all voiced the same message: citizens of Starkville need to express support for curbside recycling to the Board of Aldermen.
“Unless enough people put enough pressure on other board members to do it, it’s going to be hard to get done,” Beatty said. 
Beatty presented a new curbside recycling proposal to the board Friday. Read about it in the next issue of The Reflector.