A new waste-collection operation at the UI may encourage faculty recycling in academic buildings, but officials should put an increased focus on the dorms.
Under the new system, UI faculty and staff will be asked to empty their garbage in a central waste area to be collected once per month, as opposed to the previous twice a month. In addition, each faculty member will receive a recycling bin, which, contended Dan Heater, the director of building and landscape services at UI Facilities Management, would reduce waste on campus.
The new waste program in academic buildings is a good step toward making the campus more sustainable, but creating more accessible recycling in the dorms is also necessary.
The system also has further implications: It may cost 35 members of the UI Facilities Management custodial staff their jobs.
Heater said he thinks most of the 35 jobs at risk under the new operation will phase out over time rather than through layoffs. But during a time when seemingly everyone is struggling through the recession, such a decision is unpalatable.
While a larger recycling program in the dorms would create a need for increased hours, the UI could use that manpower to handle it.
Instead of cutting all 35 jobs, UI officials should spare a portion of those and continue to expand the recycling program to other university buildings. With less demand in academic buildings, the university should have the workforce to enact a new program as well. Instead of layoffs or phaseouts, custodians could be given the option to simply switch their work to the dorms.
UI officials slightly expanded recycling throughout the dorms this year, placing bins in the basements of Rienow and Slater and a few others in Hillcrest and Quadrangle. That increase came at very limited costs: the price of a receptacle and compensation for the student who empties it, said Von Stange, the director of University Housing.
There are plans to expand recycling programs to the east dorms, he said, but officials “don’t want to overwhelm City Carton,” the company in charge of local recycling. Not only should dorms such as Burge, Currier, and Stanley have a recycling program in place as soon as possible, but the bins need to be more accessible for students in all of the dorms. Implementing a larger recycling program in the dorms would have both immediate and long-term positive implications.
In the short term, a recycling program in the dorms would reduce the amount of nonrecyclable waste in residence halls. It’s unlikely that a student living on the top floor of Slater will drag a bag of recycling down to the basement of the building. If bins were placed in each floor’s trash room, students would be much more likely to take the time to separate their waste.
In the long term, students who get used to recycling every day will continue to do so as they move out of the dorms into apartments, graduate, and start their own lives. As freshmen become accustomed to a more independent lifestyle, getting into the habit of recycling could be just one more thing that will eventually become a routine.
Everyone is talking about “going green.” People, especially the environmentally minded youth, want to help, and recycling is an effective, efficient way for dorm residents to do their part.
UI officials should make recycling more accessible, instilling the habit in young students and, in turn, creating a cleaner, more sustainable campus.
