Green Affairs Wants Your Enthusiasm and Ideas!

MCV Green Affairs focuses on making MCV campus at VCU and the Richmond community greener through service and education. This student-led organization welcome students, faculty, and staff, from all schools and disciplines, both medical and academic from either campus, as well as Richmond community members to help us pursue our goals of educational outreach, increased recycling access, improved sustainable practices and policies at VCU, and community outreach. Email Green Affairs to share your ideas or to get involved.

Recycle Your Waste With Green Affairs

Green Affairs wants to help you divert harmful items like electronics from the landfill, so they can be upcycled and gain a new life! Many of these items also earn Green Affairs Terracycle points, which we can then cash in for a donation to be used for our ongoing community outreach efforts. Join the recycling party and give us your waste the 3rd Tuesday of every month on MCV Campus. Want to help Green Affairs and the environment by collecting some of the items below for us at your school or workplace? Contact mcv.green.affairs@gmail.com and we'll tell you how!

Following is a list of items we can and cannot accept: Don't see something on the list? You can likely find a place nearby to recycle it here, or if not, check out this website.

Next e-cycling event is October 16th, 4-6pm, at the VCU Community Garden (900 Turpin St.)
  • Bottle Cap Recycling
    • This program accepts caps that are rigid plastic, sometimes noted with a 5 in the chasing arrows recycling symbol. 


      • This includes caps that twist on with a threaded neck such as caps on shampoo, water, soda, milk and other beverage bottles and pharmaceutical lids, flip top caps on tubes and food product bottles (such as ketchup and mayonnaise), laundry detergents and some jar lids such as peanut butter. Click here to download a Cap Collection Guide.
    • Excluded from collection are non rigid lids such as yogurt lids, tub lids (margarine, cottage cheese), and screw on lids that are not rigid. Please do not include any metal lids or plastic pumps or sprayers. Unfortunately, too much of the wrong types of materials can contaminate the recycling process. ***Please include yogurt and dairy tub lids with the other dairy tubs to help us send them to the right location and ensure they get recycled properly. 
    • Special thanks to Salon del Sol for accepting these caps for recycling (You can also drop them off there yourself)!
  • Plastic Cat Litter Buckets
  • New! Candy Bar Wrappers!
  • Cleaning Product Packaging
    • pumps
    • triggers
    • pouches
    • flexible cleaner product packaging
  • Dairy Tubs
    • Any brand: all cream cheese tubs and lids, all sour cream tubs and lids, all cheese tubs and lids, all yogurt tubs and lids, all butter tubs and lids, all margarine tubs and lids, any other dairy product tub, foil tops, plastic tub tops, any other type of packaging on all dairy tubs.
  • New! Drink Pouches!
  • Oral Care Packaging
    • Any brand: toothpaste tubes, toothpaste caps, tooth brushes, floss containers.

  • Personal Care and Cosmetics Packaging
    • Any brand: lipstick cases, mascara tubes, eye shadow cases, shampoo bottles, conditioner bottles, bronzer cases, foundation packaging, body wash containers, soap tubes, soap dispensers, lotion dispensers, shaving foam tubes (no cans), powder cases, lotion bottles, chap stick tubes, lotion tubes, face soap dispensers, face soap tubes, face lotion bottles, face lotion jars, eyeliner cases, eyeliner pencils, eyeshadow tubes, concealer tubes, concealer sticks, lip liner pencils, hand lotion tubes, hair gel tubes, hair paste jars.
    • NO hair spray cans, nail polish bottles and nail polish remover bottles
  • Pizza boxes
    • We'll use them for garden mulch!
  • Various Promotional Items
    • Reusable bags (in good condition)
    • Working USB keys (non-working can be recycled instead)
    • Water bottles
    • Coffee mugs/travel mugs
  • Scotch Tape Packaging
    • Any brand: plastic tape dispensers, plastic tape cores
  • New! Solo Cups!
  • Unwanted Shoes
    • Pairs of women’s, men’s, and children’s shoes, which may include athletic sneakers, cleats, flats, high heels, dress shoes, boots, and fashion or casual sneakers.
    • NO ski boots, roller skates, roller blades, ice skates, completely broken or ruined footwear, single shoes, rubber flip flops, or slippers
    • You can drop off completely ruined footwear if is athletic only (running shoes) at these locations
  • Unwanted T-shirts
    • New or used, we will upcycle them into fantastic reusable bags. Drop by our table and we'll teach you how!
  • All #5 Plastics
  • Corks
  • Electronics
    • AC adapters


  • Bar fridges
  • Bar code equipment
  • Batteries (alkaline and rechargeable)
  • Calculators
  • Cameras
  • Cell phones
  • CDs/DVDs
  • Copiers
  • CPUs (all makes and models)
  • DVD players
  • Fax machines
  • Fluorescent bulbs
  • GPS devices
  • Ipods
  • Incandescent bulbs
  • Jump drives
  • Keyboards
  • Laptops
  • Mice
  • Microwaves
  • Monitors (all types and sizes)
  • Mp3 players
  • Networking equipment (including routers, switches, etc.)
  • Pagers
  • PDAs
  • Portable radios
  • Printers (all makes and models)
  • Printer cartridges (toner cartridges and ink jet)
  • Radar devices
  • Scanners
  • Servers
  • Small appliances - hair dryers, curling irons, blenders, clothes irons, etc.
  • Stereo equipment
  • Telephone equipment (home and business)
  • Televisions
  • Toasters
  • VCRs
  • Video cameras
  • Video game consoles and hand-held devices
  • Video games and accessories
  • NOT accepted: Large appliances (refrigeration equipment, stoves)