Half-eaten pizza slices, used napkins, soda cans, styrofoam food packaging with leftover remnants - this is what volunteers found yesterday as they dug through trash cans across campus to reclaim recyclables.

Education by Example, an organization of three University of Arizona graduate students and eight undergraduates, began its third annual recycling demonstration yesterday.

Armed with plastic gloves and trash bags, students rummaged through garbage cans. They sorted newspapers, glass, plastic, aluminium and polystyrene into individual bags. Thirteen students from the Special Education Vocational Work Experience Program at Catalina High School joined in the effort.

Education by Example will be displaying the reclaimed items on the Mall from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. today.

Paul Braun, Education by Example chairman, said 60 to 80 percent of the material in the bins they searched through yesterday could have been recycled. But not all material, like glass and plastic, can be recycled at the UA.

Standing by a trash can in front of the Fiddlee Fig in the Student Union, Catalina High School student Daniel Romano commented that he was finding a lot of newspapers.

Heather Khan, business and public administration junior and Education by Example member, was also digging through the trash yesterday.

"We've been finding lots of recyclables in the trash," Khan said. "People have lost interest in recycling."

She said she hopes the demonstration is an eye-opener, because recycling should be a bigger part of campus life. It is a simple thing to do and has many benefits, she said.

"I personally don't want to live in a landfill in the future and I don't think my kids will want to either," she said.

Amelia Reyes-Bryson, coordinator of the work experience program at Catalina High School, said, "We wanted to bring the students here to help recycle so they could get involved with the community and become aware of recycling and the environment."

"They need to know that they can make a difference," she said.

Adam Bishop, Catalina High School freshman, said there is not a recycling program at his school. Reyes-Bryson said they hope to start one, but it would have to be worked out with the administration.

Braun said 20 human-sized bags of polystyrene were collected last year. He said he expected three times as much this year because more types of recyclables are being collected.

Yesterday the group gathered 10 bags of polystyrene, 10 bags of plastics bottles, four bags of aluminum, two bags of newspaper and 100 pounds of glass.