Students with flash drives to spare can now lend a hand to make campus more sustainable.

GreenToppers, WKU’s student sustainability organization, is hosting a “flash drive drive.”

The group created a publication for students that gives helpful hints on how to live, play and learn more sustainably, GreenToppers member and Rusellville senior Quinna Sydnor said.

“It’s a complete guide that talks about what goes into recycling bins, where the bins are on campus, how to eat and how to even shop sustainably,” Sydnor said.

Christian Ryan-Downing, sustainability coordinator and GreenToppers adviser, said it wouldn’t be efficient if every student received the 21-page document in paper format.

So Sydnor suggested that the publication should be distributed on flash drives.

“They wanted to distribute (the publication) to lots and lots of people,” Ryan-Downing said. “If we only printed 200 copies, then that’s only 200 students that would be able to have it. And that’s a lot of paper.”

Originally, the group was going to buy all of the flash drives needed but realized that would be too expensive, she said.

“(GreenToppers) came up with the brilliant idea that a lot of people have flash drives they’re not using, so maybe we could do a flash drive drive,” Ryan-Downing said. “We thought, ‘What a great idea!’ So we decided to try it.”

The flash drives are sustainable because they save paper and are reusable, Sydnor said.

“Students can put their own information and documents on the flash drive after they read the publication,” she said.

Ryan-Downing said she and the GreenToppers aren’t sure how many flash drives they’ll be able to collect.

“One time, when we needed name tags for the Campus Sustainability Conference, we did a name tag drive, and we got more name tags than we could possibly use,” she said. “Obviously, flash drives are worth a little bit more, and people save their documents on them, but anything we get we’ll be pleased about.”

Students may drop unwanted flash drives in campus mail addressed to Recycling, Parking Structure 1, according to an e-mail from Recycling Coordinator Cristin Lanham encouraging students to participate. The drive will continue through October.

“A few of them have come in already,” Ryan-Downing said. “Even just after the first e-mail.”