Blue goes green

The University will soon be more environmentally friendly, thanks to students raising money and concern about the school's inadequate recycling program.

In August, The University approved a $360,000 proposal from the Sustainable Campus Fee Committee. Of that, 220,000 will go to increasing recycling efforts on campus.

It calls for $100,000 to hire a new sustainability programs coordinator and a new employee to pick up recycling. $120,000 will purchase a new recycling vehicle, as well as additional recycling bins and other needed equipment.

Funding comes from the Green Fee, a $10 per semester fee voted for by students in the spring of 2007. The University expects the fee to bring in around $360,000 per year.

"You can certainly say enhancing recycling is the number one priority, as far as where the Green Fee funds go this year," said William Porter, chair of the Sustainable Campus Fee Committee, and Dean of Students.

The money has recently been allocated, and students and staff should expect to see more recycling bins added by next semester, according to David Zettergren, assistant vice president of finance.

Zettegren said the committee chose recycling improvements instead of a long-term project because the project will be visible and take effect sooner so students could see where their money is going.

Students of the Environmental Action Club brought awareness of the issue to the committee.

"The seemingly random-placed recycling bins around campus are not part of any established recycling system," said Benjamin Edwards, a junior biology major who is a member of the EAC. "To my knowledge, there was one person with Physical Plant who was picking up paper recycling around campus, but once again there is no existing recycling plan carried out by Physical Plant or Waste Management across campus."

Improving recycling on campus has been a concern for students for a while.

Erica Christensen, president of EAC, said the organization ran an effective campaign two years ago to implement the campus green fee. Half the fee would be spent on obtaining renewable energy, and the other half would be used for projects such as advancing our recycling program and sustainability developments. Students' voted to raise their tuition by $10 to execute the plan.

"I'm glad that the Green Fee Committee approved it," Christensen said. "We have been talking to the Physical Plant for several years. We did research on recycling programs at other universities. I know it's something they wanted."

Although some materials are picked up to be recycled, many of the receptacles are hard for students to find.

For example, the bins in Patterson Hall are located in rooms 113, 119, and 467. Students may not be able to track down a place where they could recycle their old notes or empty bottles.

"Right now, our campus has recycling bins all over it, but most of them are next to drink machines or in random basement rooms or nooks that people aren't usually around," said Patrick Howie, committee chair for SGA's Environmental Committee.

"Also, when was the last time you or anyone you know bought a Coke, chugged it there, and then threw it into the recycling bin? The answer is probably never, because people usually tend to take their drinks with them and dispose of them whenever they're empty."

Those soda cans that get thrown away get dumped in a landfill.

An estimated 35 percent of the materials that are dumped into landfills are containers and packaging, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Non-durable goods such as paper towels, diapers and magazines are next on the list, at 27 percent. Yard trimmings, food waste and durable goods are less abundant in landfills but account for an average of 12 percent of landfill debris.

"Not everybody realizes how much trash goes into landfills ..." much less, how harmful to our environment the waste is that goes into landfills in Memphis," Howie said.

Recycling decreases our use of landfills for trash disposal. According to the Container Recycling Institute, 80 percent of plastic bottles in the US will spend around 1,000 years in landfills. Continuing to fling trash in garbage cans, keeps it accumulating in landfills.

The Tennessee Waste Reduction Goal Task Force reported half of the world's garbage comes from the US. The country only accounts for 6 percent of the people in the world.

Recycling is a complex process. Once collected, the items are sent to a materials recovery facility, according to the EPA. Next, they are sorted and set up into marketable products, and they are sold to manufacturers, who clean and separate them. The end of the cycle finally comes when a consumer purchases a recycled product.

Purchasing recycled products is a vital part of the course of action to help the environment. As people increase their purchases of more eco-friendly products, companies will continue to provide them with high-quality recycled goods.

The EPA refers to buying recycled products as "closing the loop." The organization also reported there are over 4,500 products available that are made of recycled materials. Aluminum cans, comic books, egg cartons, trash bags, motor oil, carpet and car bumpers can all contain recycled materials.

Just like the demand has increased all over the country, it has also increased at The U of M. Two decades ago, there was only one city with curbside collection in the United States. By 2006, that number rose to 8,660.