Chelsea Krivanek, a nursing major from Morrisville, has a vision of seeing UNC go green.
During her time at UNC, Krivanek has worked with the Carolina For the Kids Foundation and Building for Tomorrow. She gained leadership experience as being a resident adviser in Craige Residence Hall.
Krivanek first learned the power of morale when she served as the Morale and Recruitment chair for the organization formerly known as Dance Marathon in the spring. Krivanek wants to use her powers of encouragement and the Miss UNC title to urge students to recycle.
Krivanek’s project — called “Tabs for Hope” — was born after she learned about a children’s playground that was paid for by recylced tabs.
She then discovered an organization, Trenton, New Jersey-based TerraCycle, that takes recyclable goods and, in exchange for those goods, donates to a nonprofit or school of the donor’s choice.
In her online platform, Krivanek details the ways in which aluminum can be easily recycled multiple times — Krivanek said she wants to collect items like batteries and tabs from soda cans and cash them in with TerraCycle.
Krivanek wants to take the money from the donated goods and give it to both the Ronald McDonald House and TABLE, a subgroup of Campus Y.
“I think it’s important because we pride ourselves on diversity and being a passionate student body, and we all have things we care about, but what we all have in common is the Earth. This is where we live,” Krivanek said.
“It’ll open up the conversation on recycling on campus,” Krivanek said.
