University students kicked off Earth Week, an annual series of events hosted by the Students for Environmental Concerns, on Saturday. Earth Week is an extended celebration of Earth Day, which takes place Monday.

“It’s our efforts to raise awareness of sustainability,” said Jamie Zouras, chair of SECS’ Earth Week Planning Committee and sophomore in LAS. “We want to communicate with the students that the University shows sustainability efforts and that everyday efforts really do make a big environmental impact.”

The registered student organization will be hosting events on Earth Day, including an Earth Week Symposium, a green cleaning supplies workshop and a showing of Dr. Seuss’s “The Lorax” on the Quad.

The UI Wellness Center hosted “Blooms, not Butts,” a new tobacco litter pick-up event on Saturday. For Tuesday’s Environmental Expo at the Illini Union’s Courtyard Cafe, the Wellness Center will be adding a unique twist to the event by transforming tobacco litter into art displays, said Michele Guerra, director of UI Wellness Center. She said most universities put collected tobacco litter in tubes to show how much they had collected, but she wanted something more interesting, adding that the art will be themed on the benefits of a smoke-free campus.

“We wanted to make it a positive event,” said Paula Chmiel, UI Wellness Center Program assistant. “We wanted to make it about the benefits of quitting, not just ‘this is bad.’”

The idea for the event came when the University decided to go smoke free last fall. Guerra said the Wellness Center wants to compare how much on-campus tobacco litter will have decreased after the University goes smoke free Jan. 1, 2014.

The Wellness Center will weigh the amount of tobacco litter gathered at this year’s event and compare it to the amount of litter collected at next year’s event.

“We want to draw awareness that one of the reasons (for quitting tobacco use) is for green reasons, not just health ones,” Guerra said.

Although the tobacco litter had not been officially weighed yet, Guerra said the bags of litter filled up her car’s trunk. Most tobacco litter was found near Grainger and Undergraduate Libraries. 

Volunteers sent to this area spent all two hours of the event picking up litter and said they could have stayed longer, Guerra said.

However, as Guerra said to volunteers picking up litter, this was not just an evaluation of tobacco litter on campus, but an awareness event. Because of this, Guerra asked volunteers to distribute carnations with informational letters attached explaining tobacco litter’s harmful effects on the environment.

This is not the only part of the event that “blooms,” as Chmiel said. The Wellness Center has hopes to replace campus cigarette receptacles with plants after the University has gone smoke free. 

This was not the only event held Saturday, as the Champaign County Regional Planning Commission hosted a county-wide residential electronics collection in Champaign. This event has been held several times a year since 2008, said Champaign County Recycling Coordinator Susan Monte.

Monte said past events had been successful, collecting 215,000 tons of electronics in 2012, but turnout at Saturday’s event was “record breaking,” seeing 1,029 vehicles deliver electronics Saturday.

Though the weight of electronics hasn’t been estimated yet, Monte said about 60 percent were old or broken televisions.

Zouras said there will also be events that were repeated from last year, such as “Bike Blender Smoothies” on Wednesday. SECS will make smoothies without electricity using a bike hooked up to a blender.

Earth Week will conclude Friday with a Sustainability Innovations Seminar Series followed by a Sustainable Foods Discussion and Picnic on the Quad.

Kat can be reached at [email protected].