Students can help their fellow Gators by cleaning up a different type of swamp.
Student organizations can sign up to clean and maintain conservation areas on campus through the UF Office of Sustainability’s Adopt-A-“Swamp” program.
The program will launch at the start of the 2012 academic year, but a handful of organizations have gotten a head start.
This semester has been spent finalizing the cleanup process, said Ashley Pennington, Office of Sustainability outreach coordinator.
Student organizations can get involved next year by filling out an application through the Office of Sustainability.
When a club adopts a “swamp,” it will be responsible for keeping it clean from August to the following August, she said.
UF GreenLaw participated in Adopt-A-“Swamp” to clean the Law School Woods near the Levin College of Law.
GreenLaw, formerly known as the Environmental and Land Use Law Society, has been maintaining the area since 2007.
The group has had two cleanups this semester to pick up litter, clear trails and clear the area of invasive plant species, said Jennilyn Thiboult, senior president of GreenLaw.
“In general, we try to encourage people to enjoy the outdoors and not be stuck in the library all day,” Thiboult said.
While the UF Wetlands Club is not an official part of the program, it has collected 13,931 pounds of trash from the Bivens Arm floodplain since 2004, according to Rupesh Bhomia, the organization’s president.
Almost 3,000 pounds of litter were collected from central campus wetlands after a campus cleanup by the Office of Sustainability last semester, Pennington said.
