Recycling Bin

Campus Recycling Program

Tina Massey

Campus recycling started back in the 1970s. The staff, faculty, and students collected recycling material and took it to the local collection center.  This effort informed individuals that are not informed on campus about recycling across the campus. Recycling to me is something that you can take and use it for something else. I pick this part of history because I like to take things and make something new with them, other than the original thing that it may have been from the begin.

In the early 1990 is when the campus made it a campus wide recycling program. The program was made by the students which were recruited by the faculty and staff for the recycling committee. The program was adopted by the Recycling Resolution in 1995, Started with the focus on paper, cardboard, and aluminum cans. Andy Schnabel (Professor in Biology) wrote a letter to the I.D.E.M. organization that provided the money to purchase the blue recycling bins that are in the hallways in the campus buildings, outdoors bins that are for recycling plastic. There are also recycling bins in the professors' offices, too.

The program depends on the custodial staff and the grounds crew for a regular pickup   for recycling program. Items collected are paper, aluminum cans, plastic bottles, and cardboard for the recycling station in every building. The custodial staff takes care of the inside; the grounds crew takes care of outdoor recycling bins. The campus recycling program has expanded since 2000 and It includes item such as paper, newsprints, staple bound catalogs, telephone books, steel cans, aluminum foil and plastic containers. There was also an Electronic media recycling program started in 2000, but it was discontinued in 2008 due to heightened security concerns about identity theft.

The annual recycling drive was to collect the "Tough Stuff” for recycling such as plastic bags, Styrofoam, egg carton, shoes, and electronics. Annual community electronic recycling drives started in 2009 partnership with Apple Computers. The Indiana University of South Bend (IUSB) center organized the community electronic recycling events from 2010 to the present. The program roughly generates around 800 dollars a year. The money is used to expand the program around the campus and teach us how to reduce waste and learn the positive ways of the recycling. I think if individuals would learn how not to waste, but learn how to recycle it will be a cleaner world.