Taking care of the environment while collaborating with associations such as ADEMNA (association of Multiple Sclerosis of Navarra) is the latest challenge in which the group of Environmental Volunteers of the University of Navarra, composed of more than thirty students and graduates of different Schools has been involved.

The campaign, which was launched in March 2014 by Celia González, a student at Biochemistry at the time, has focused on the collection and recycling of used writing materials. To date, 30 kilos of material have been collected and sent to business Terracycle, a platform that offers different free recycling programs. "To carry out the campaign," explains one of its coordinators, Nora Escribano, "we placed boxes to collect the material in almost all the buildings of campus. Then our role has been to monitor the condition of the boxes and check that the material left there was suitable for the campaign, because although most people do it well, sometimes we find material that cannot be recycled".

Several collection points in Navarra

In the hands of the recycling business , used pens, markers or highlighters have become money that Environmental Volunteers have decided to donate to the association Multiple Sclerosis of Navarra (ADEMNA). "Our partnership has not only been there, since ADEMNA has invited us to explain at its headquarters what we do at Voluntarios Ambientales, what other campaigns we have underway and how the specific idea of giving a second life to office material at the same time that we were collaborating with associations to give an even broader social aspect to our campaign arose", emphasizes María Casas, another of the coordinators of group.

In this sense, the coordinators -together with Professor Juana Fernández (manager of group)- hope that this campaign will be permanent at the University, since they consider that this space generates a lot of material that can be put to a new use. In addition to the different buildings of the University of Navarra, there are other collection points for used office material in Pamplona, Noáin, Tudela and Buñuel.