LEXINGTON, Ky. — University of Kentucky students are transforming discarded plastic bags into sleeping mats for Lexington's homeless population through an expanding campus initiative that combines waste reduction with community support.

The BBN Tackles Plastic program, created by Shayna Bassi, a UK Recycling intern and communication science and disorders senior at the College of Health Sciences, began as a pilot program at the start of spring semester with collection bins at three campus locations. The initiative has since expanded to include five residence halls, with plans to scale across all residence halls by fall.

In its first month and a half, the program collected nearly 850 plastic bags that would have otherwise ended up in landfills or contaminated campus recycling systems. Plastic bags are a common contaminant in mixed recycling programs and cannot be processed through standard facilities, according to Ryan Lark, UK's zero-waste specialist.

The collected bags are donated to Sustainability Future Leaders, an on-campus student organization led by Bassi, where members weave them into durable sleeping mats. The mats are distributed to Lexington residents without stable housing through a partnership with The Hope Center. The student organization has completed 20 mats over the past two years and has finished eight more this academic year with additional mats in progress.

"Through the BBN Tackles Plastic initiative, we are able to find a second life for a material usually thrown away and also support an under-sourced population in the greater Lexington community," Bassi said.

The program advances three of UK's five sustainability guiding principles: integrating sustainability into the student experience, reinforcing commitment to people, and working toward zero-waste campus status. On-campus residents produce a disproportionate amount of waste compared to other students since they live at the university year-round, making residence halls a key target for the initiative.

"By implementing this program, we are raising awareness about how to be more sustainably-minded while also keeping a nuisance waste product out of the landfill," Lark said.