DeKALB – NIU’s school colors are black and cardinal red, but a new student organization thinks green should be considered.

Go Green, Go Clean is an environmentalist organization that was founded to protect the environment of NIU’s campus. The organization was founded by its current President and Vice President, Marissa Di Zillo and Erik Gibbons respectively, after seeing the high volume of trash around the campus. 

Di Zillo, a sophomore marketing major with an emphasis in environmentalism, said the amount of litter surrounding their dorm, Stevenson Towers, and the nearby fields was crazy to the two of them.

“We wanted to create an organization that could help do something about it (the litter),” Di Zillo said.

Go Green, Go Clean members pick up and properly dispose of trash across campus, educating the NIU community of the detrimental effects pollution has on the environment through their community trash pick up events. The organization’s mission is to promote environmental awareness and sustainability for NIU.

“Our goal is to make NIU a cleaner and nicer campus for everybody,” Di Zillo said.

One event the organization hopes to do will be a clean up of litter around the East Lagoon area. Di Zillo said the organization may try to partner with the Campus Activities Board and to rent kayaks for this event making the clean up of trash more fun, Di Zillo said. As of yet, there are no confirmed plans for this event.

Students who want to stay up to date on Go Green, Go Clean events or join the organization can do so by visiting its page on Huskie Hub.