Queens junior Alma Beciragic (pronounced Bet-chee-ra-geech) will
make wish you were more diligent about recycling. After all, the
Croatian-born Charlottean is researching the frequency with
which each green recycling bin "tips" into a city truck.
However, fret not; at least not yet. Using Charlotte's Solid
Waste Management data to determine recycling compliance in
certain neighborhoods was the environmental science major's
idea. Charlotte put radio frequency identification (RFID) tags
in the 90-gallon green bins it rolled out in 2010 simply to keep
tabs on the city's investment. Yet, Alma's idea was to "take
advantage" of the available data to determine if recycling
frequency correlated with age or income demographics she gained
from the UNCC Urban Institute. That first phase of research was
inconclusive, so she switched to "is there something we can do
about this?" Using grant funding from the National Conference on
Undergraduate Research, she sent postcards detailing what to
recycle and what it would do for