Students now have the opportunity to vote on a new design for a new UCLA library mug, which student leaders hope will reduce campus waste.
Associated Students UCLA and Undergraduate Students Association Council Facilities Commissioner Armen Hadjimanoukian organized the redesign process.
The redesigned mug will be available for purchase at coffeehouses across campus on Earth Day, April 22. Students with a mug can receive a discount on each cup of coffee they buy, said Karen Noh, ASUCLA’s special projects director.
Coffeehouses across campus, including Kerckhoff Coffee House, Café 451, Jimmy’s Coffee House and Northern Lights will offer paper voting for students during the time period, Hadjimanoukian said.
Voting will start Tuesday and run through Thursday.
Students can choose from a total of eight different graphic options and five different mug styles, ranging from about $7 to $20, Hadjimanoukian said.
The mug program started in the mid-1980s. ASUCLA worked with the UCLA Library to make the library mug, which was originally the only mug students were allowed to bring into the library, Noh said.
The old mug, which has not been updated for several years, is still being sold in campus coffeehouses for $7.25.
The commission’s ultimate goal is to help reduce waste and contribute to UCLA’s Zero Waste Plan, which hopes to send zero waste to landfills by 2020, Hadjimanoukian said.
Negeen Sadeghi-Movahed, a third-year political science student, said she considered buying the old library mug for novelty reasons. Sadeghi said she would buy the new mug if students picked the design because it would reflect student input.
The Facilities Commission plans to apply for funding through the Green Initiative Fund in order to lower the price of the first mugs sold, Hadjimanoukian said.
Hadjimanoukian added that the Facilities Commission is planning to offer coffee tastings throughout campus during Earth Week to boost mug sales and encourage students to be sustainable.