By Sean Colvin Staff writer
In a study on Susquehanna’s campus, students were asked what percentage of their mixed media recycling they thought ends up going to a recycling plant. Most students believed that about half of their recycling is being recycled, with the other half going in the trash.
16.5 percent of students believed that all of their mixed media recycling was getting recycled and 8.6 percent believed that none at all was actually being recycled. Despite this, of those same students, 98.8 percent of students said that they recycle regularly.
So why are some students skeptical about how much of their waste gets recycled?
According to Director of Facilities Management Chris Bailey, the problem is two-pronged. Firstly, students see that items that don’t belong in the mixed stream recycling bins often get placed there by careless students. Secondly, on pickup day, students have observed their trash and recycling all being piled onto the same truck, which gives students the impression that all of their waste is actually being wasted.
Bailey said that what students don’t understand is that these bags are color-coded for later separation. Black bags go to the trash and translucent bags go to recycling once they’ve reached the Facilities Management building. Trash gets compacted for transport, and recyclables are loaded into a tractor-trailer that gets trucked off to Chambersburg Waste Paper four times per year.
“A lot of times students will be concerned because they’ll see the recycling being thrown into the same truck that garbage bags are going onto,” Bailey said.
Bailey did confirm that some bins on campus have contamination issues, namely the outdoor green cans near academic buildings. He said that often these cans get a lot of food waste thrown in them, which renders the load unrecyclable.
“It’s an odor and handling issue,” Bailey said. This is because recyclables tend to sit around for a while before being handled. Because of this, Facilities Management is forced to throw some of these bags in with the trash.
Bailey said that Susquehanna does not make money off these municipal recyclables; in fact, the school has to pay to have certain materials recycled, like electronics, which used to earn a small profit. This, Bailey said, is because recycling has grown so popular that the market is saturated with electronic materials.
Among the products that do generate a return for Susquehanna are industrial grade corrugated cardboard and metal. Still, according to Bailey, it’s cheaper to recycle materials than to throw them away.
“It comes down to a personal ethic. It’s a way of being a good global citizen and taking care of our resources the best we can. And it’s easy,” he said.
