The average college student produces 640 pounds of material waste each year, much of which can be recycled.
Recyclable paper products comprise approximately 36 percent of public landfills. While Americans make up 5 percent of the world’s population, they annually produce 27 percent of the world’s trash.
Numbers such as these from the L.A. Bureau of Sanitation are some of the same statistics that the City of Los Angeles and UCLA try to reduce by utilizing various programs aimed at increasing recycling.
“A recycling program requires a lot of commitment, and we wouldn’t be working so hard at it if it wasn’t important for UCLA, as well as society as a whole, to be involved in,” said Jack Powazek, assistant vice chancellor for general services at UCLA.
Los Angeles has demonstrated a dedication to recycling as shown by its diversion rate of 62 percent, which is the highest rate for any major California city, said Neil Guglielmo, division manager of the Solid Resources Citywide Recycling Division of the L.A. Bureau of Sanitation.
Diversion is the percentage of the total waste disposal that is not sent to landfills. It accounts for all recycling, mulching, and composting.
“A lot of work is being done to recycle as much as we can to reduce materials going to landfills,” Guglielmo said.
“There is a long way to go to reach the pinnacle of zero waste, but we are definitely moving forward in that direction as people are recycling more and more.”
The L.A. Bureau of Sanitation collects over 240,000 tons of recyclables in Los Angeles each year, which can be remanufactured into a wide variety of products.
The recycling division of the bureau works to expand the materials that can be put in the city’s blue bins, as well as educate the public on what can be recycled, Guglielmo said.
Recent additions to recycled materials include wire hangers and plastic bags, while polystyrene foam will soon be recyclable.
“We make sure there is a use for recyclable materials and take on the challenge of finding creative solutions for how products can be remanufactured,” Guglielmo said.
“A plastic bottle may end up in its next life as a T-shirt.”
At UCLA, 22 percent of all solid waste is recycled, while another 20 percent is shipped to a waste-energy plant to produce electricity, Powazek said.
A major component of the university’s recycled materials is white paper, of which 1,350 tons are collected annually in the 600 to 700 white-paper receptacles across campus.
UCLA also recycles 300 tons of cardboard, 300 tons of metal and 400 tons of mixed paper each year.
UCLA is currently in the process of recruiting a full-time recycling coordinator, which would boost the program to an even higher level, Powazek said.
“Ideally, we want to be recycling 50 percent of our solid waste,” Powazek said.
Though recycling some materials provides rebates, recycling programs rarely generate a profit, Powazek said.
“Overall, a recycling program is an added expense for the university, but this program has continued to expand throughout the years as different components were added, and we have not allowed budget cuts to hit this program,” Powazek said.
An increasing number of recycling programs are expanding, as new ways to reduce the number of items that must go into landfills are introduced.
Los Angeles recently began a program to reduce the cost of food-waste disposal in restaurants. Two hundred restaurants have already joined the program, in which food is thrown in organic-materials containers and then composted.
“Seventy-five to 80 percent of restaurant waste is food waste that can be composted, so we subsidize the program to reduce the cost for trash disposal if the restaurant separates their food waste from other trash,” Guglielmo said.
“There should not be a higher cost for restaurants to do the right thing.”
Some programs are even in place to utilize the gases produced from retired landfills in a beneficial way.
UCLA buys the methane gas produced in a nearby landfill to provide 7 to 8 percent of the energy needed to operate the turbines in the university’s cogeneration power plant, said David Johnson, director of energy services and utilities.
“Using landfill gas allows the university to use a renewable resource that would have to be disposed of anyway,” Johnson said.
“We reduce our natural gas consumed and get a benefit from the byproduct of the dump.”
Ultimately, recycling will continue to increase through the use of additional education about the importance of reducing waste, Guglielmo said.