Earth Day Network offers a wealth of information that you may be able to use to promote an Earth Day Awareness Event along with your campus student activities office. Your college campus may have a student activities office where you can request funding for the event in order to purchase food to give out free as incentive for the students to stop by and visit the information booths. The Student Government Association on campus may have college identified freebies. You may want to request they purchase water bottle to give away at the event as encouragement for students to refill their water bottle versus buying plastic water bottles. The expected result should be that students are made aware of the hazards of not recycling and of the local resources available in order to recycle. Local businesses may be interested in participating just for the free publicity they get. The local Chamber of Commerce has a listing of businesses and organizations that you could contact.
Designate a time period such as one day or a week when you challenge students, faculty and staff to rethink their mode of transportation. Encourage and reward those who ride a bike, take mass transportation to campus or are part of a car pool. In addition to advertising the Go Green project, gather statistics as to energy that was saved, the less amount of toxins spewed in the air. About My Planet has statistics regarding the pollutants saved by bicycling rather than driving and other information that could be interesting to share either by having an information booth or making up fliers to pass out on campus.
Although most college campuses have recycling bins for paper and soda cans, there are other recycling programs that you could post on campus such as recycle centers for electronics. To find out where your local recycle centers are for electronics and other recyclable items visit the website Earth911: Recycling 101. You could organize a collection of old electronics in your community and get volunteers to pick up old televisions or computers and drop them off at the recycling center in your area.
Contact local nurseries or businesses that sell trees and ask if they would donate a tree to plant on campus. You could advertise the date that you will be planting the tree and have literature available about the benefits to the planet by planting trees. The United Nations Environment Program has information available regarding the benefits, such as creating oxygen as well as providing a habitat for animals. This Go Green project could be a stand alone, or part of Earth Awareness Day.