Campus recycling expands
More bins added beyond Ackerman and Kerckhoff; 30 sites around
campus
By Tatiana Botton
Students on campus will soon encounter several containers with
blue domes and two slots on their sides. These are the new
newspaper recycling bins to be installed this month.
"We decided to put a blue dome because it will attract student
attention. The dome will also prevent rain from pouring in during
rainy season. As people get to recognize them, they’ll be able to
spot them around campus," said Denese Becker, the Environmental
Coalition’s recycling coordinator.
The installation of 30 bins around campus is a joint effort by
the Environmental Coalition, facilities management and the
students’ association recycling program  a group entirely
student-run since 1993.
Until now, paper and aluminum recycling bins have been only at
students’ association restaurants and stores such as Ackerman Union
and Kerckhoff Hall. But in an attempt to solve the problem of
newspapers blowing around campus, the group will tour the different
possible sites today for new bins.
Every month a recycling company comes to haul away the
association’s accumulated material  which includes white,
color and computer paper, in addition to newspapers and aluminum
cans. In the five and a half years since the program started, more
than 1.5 million pounds of newspapers have been recycled, saving
more than 50,000 trees, said Adam Sherman, the program’s public
information officer.
But not all the recycling programs have been successful on
campus. For two years, the students’ association tried to implement
a polystyrene recycling program.
"We had to stop the program," Sherman said. "The company could
not accept the load because it was too contaminated."
He also added that the recycling information signs were not
clear enough and that students mixed polystyrene with other
products such as food and paper.
But many students wonder why there isn’t a glass recycling
program on campus.
"We cannot have our employees handle the glass for safety
reasons," said Sherman, adding that glass is heavy and more
dangerous for employees.
But Sherman admitted that restaurants sell a lot of
glass-bottled drinks and that a glass recycling program would be
very useful on campus.
For the moment, the students’ association is encouraging
concerned students to put their glass bottles into the aluminum can
recycling bins. Those bins are taken by the student program members
to be recycled in Santa Monica. The quantity of glass that can be
recycled in this way is very small and the procedure doesn’t have
official approval, said Kevin Castillo, the program’s student
supervisor.
Because of the growing student demand, recycling programs will
be organized at the dorms. The students’ association does not have
the right to access the dorms, so they expect some students to help
them in that area.
"There should be a small relay team volunteering from every
dorm," Castillo said, explaining that both sides could meet at a
mid-campus point where the paper, aluminum and maybe other
materials will be picked up by students’ association recycling
members.
"It’ very important that everybody cooperates for the success of
all the recycling programs," Becker said.