Week 9 - Recycling

Back in 2010, UC revealed its Recycling initiative, called All Recycling.  Previous to this date, the University did not have a solution to all the recyclable waste that was generated on campus.  This program created All Recycling trash cans that would be placed throughout all buildings and residence halls on and around campus

Since then, the All Recycling program has been a tremendous success.  According to UC'd main website, "In 2010, the University of Cincinnati recycled just over 4,600 tons of material, an increase of about 23 percent over the year before when UC recycled more than 3,700 tons of material. The most commonly recycled materials are paper, cardboard, plastics, metals and glass. Other recycled items include tires, oil, batteries, electronics, carpet and more."  This is wonderful news and began the program off on a strong right foot.

So what exactly did the All Recycling program entail?  What is accepted by the University as recycling under this program?  I did a check on UC's main page and looked up the All Recycling program and found this informative info graphic     

As you can see, this is a fairly large and encompassing list, which is a good thing.  These bins are located everywhere on campus, and are easily accessible to both students, faculty, and other campus staff.  Since its implementation in 2010, UC has been able to reduce our trash waste by up to 42%!   I wondered what the most common items that UC recycled were, and found a report by M. B. Reilly.  In her report, Mary claimed that, "The most commonly recycled materials are paper, cardboard, plastics, metals and glass. Other recycled items include tires, oil, batteries, electronics, carpet and more."

As a student at UC, who became a member of our body in 2010 - so when the All Recycle program was adopted - I was unable to see what life was like before we had this program, although talking to friends who are both Seniors and R.A.'s, life in the dorms has been a much cleaner place.  One such RA, David Cowens, remembered how much messier dorms were back when he was a freshman.  There were no recycling bins on some floors and bottles and pizza boxes and beer cans ended up being thrown in trashcans until they overfilled onto the floors. 

Backing up a few years to when I was a Freshman in Daniels Hall, I remember seeing our trash bins fill up multiple times per week.  Each floor had one or two large Recycling bins and they were almost always full.  Every night it seemed, they would get emptied by the cleaning staff (a wonderful group of amazing people).  It always blew my mind as to how messy a bunch of college freshmen guys and girls could be, but looking back again, I realize these were All Recycle bins.  And they made our lives so much cleaner.  They really did make all the difference in the world.  

Last summer I worked in the dorms as a Conference Assistant.  What that meant was that it was my job to help assist the incoming freshmen during their orientation week.  During this time, I was in charge of Siddall, and saw roughly 2000 incoming freshmen.  Each of these freshmen spent a night in our building, and it was my duty to help keep the dorm in working order.  Thanks to multiple recycling bins on each floor, my job was made much easier, and the issue of trash and waste was never really a problem.  Looking back, those were All Recycle bins, and even for people who were in the building for only a single night at the time, every week I would watch them get filled up.

Looking back on my own experiences as well as others' at UC, the All Recycle program has truly done wonders for the health and well being of our campus.  When you first take a look at this program, it doesn't seem like anything out of the ordinary.  Just simply some trash bins scattered throughout campus.  And then you realize that they are almost everywhere, there are hundreds of them on campus.  And they really do make a difference.  It's one of those things that most people would acknowledge as if it were common sense if you asked them, but I feel like a lot of people either don't know about this or take it for granted.  When I sent a few of my friends who worked in the dorms as R.A.'s messages via Facebook asking them about this, most of them didn't even know the name of the program, although they assumed that UC had one.  This is definitely a very good initiative by UC that has created a great deal of good on campus!

Work Cited

"Recycling @ UC", University of Cincinnati, copyright 2012, http://www.uc.edu/af/facilities/services/recycling.html.

"Recycling Grows at UC - By Tons at a Time", M.B. Reilly,  4/20/2011 http://www.uc.edu/news/NR.aspx?id=13485.