Recycling in the Joe Crowley Student Union

[Michael Higdon]

Okay so this kind of strange to me. I work in The JCSU and use a lot of paper and drink soda. In my office there are blue recycle bins for paper and things but when our custodian comes by he only has a trash can that everything goes into. It's my understanding paper is our responsibility but what about bottles and cans? I don't see anywhere to put these and it defeats the purpose for the recycling bins to be dumped in the trash.

What do you guys know about this? SEEDS, you tackle The Joe a lot, am I just not looking in the right places or is there something else here?

[Michele Calder]

Joe -
I agree with you - what's up with this re-cycle thing in Nevada? I say in Nevada 'cuz I worked for Clark County (Las Vegas) for 16 years and we always separated our papers for recycle. We were led to believe it was recycled but in the last fews years at the RJC (District Court) we saw that it was put with the regular trash. Very disheartening!
-Michele

[Brian Duggan]

FYI, we actually recycle most of the extra Sagebrush copies in The Joe - there's a giant recycle bin located on the third floor. Perhaps we should emphasize a recycle bin in the office and ask for a bin on the third floor for plastics/aluminum cans.

[Erinn]

Someone comes by our office like once a month to pick up our aluminum and plastic. I do believe it is the Environment Health and Safety Office, they are located in one of the Applied Research Facility buildings. Their phone number is 327-5040. The recycling department within EHS is 784-1139.

I dont know where it is located at the JCSU but maybe you can request more receptacles, one for each floor?

[Virginia Smith]

Hey,

The paper recycling should be put in one of the large roll away bins, and the other plastics need to go into special bins. If you need these, you should get in touch with the maintenace department and Chuck Price. I think another problem is that they are hireing a lot of new custodial staff. I don't know how they are being trained and that might be a problem as well.

[Glee Willis]

Hi Michael --

Recycling has much improved here at UNR -- there was none when I first arrived here 20 years ago!
Sounds as if the Joe just isn't quite "in gear" yet, as compared to the rest of campus?

Here is a relatively recent Nevada News article about the paper recycling on campus:
'Diving' into campus recycling effort http://www.unr.edu/news/detail.aspx?id=2478

And here is information about the ASUN Recycling Program for plastic and glass containers, aluminum/tin cans, batteries, and ink cartridges:

About the ASUN Recycling Program

The ASUN Recycling Program collects plastic, glass, and aluminum from currently around 60 faculty
departments and student areas. In 2005, over 7,700 lbs. of recyclables where collected. In 2006, the
Recycling Program is on pace to double that figure. It is estimated that only 6 percent of recyclable
trash is recycled currently at UNR. If your department or office would be like to have a recycle bin,
which is emptied on a weekly basis, please e-mail the Recycling Program at [e-mail].
At the end of each semester, the department that has recycled the most is rewarded with a free lunch.


Cheers,

Glee

[anormalmanrunning]

I work in Morrill Hall and we have the same problem... there are two large paper recycling bins, but all of the aluminum cans and plastic bottles that people drink out of during the day end up in the trash cans.

I called the number on one of those bins "for all your recycling needs" (775-784-8020). They transferred me to someone named John who said he would set up a bin for recycling cans and bottles sometime next week.

The unique problem in this building, though, is the lack of "public" space. That is, a central, common location for the recycling bins. The only real space for this is on the third floor hallway, with offices in the building on the first and third floors... So, I'll be talking to my boss in the mean time to bring up recycling at the next staff meeting. I really just hate to see plastic and aluminum thrown away... it kills me.

[Michael Higdon]

You can both see the article I wrote about the issue at the Joe here.

John Sagebiel is the Environmental Affairs Manager, ANormalMan. He says it's an uphill battle because of those problems. If you keep him and Buzz Nelson you can hopefully get a lot of the issues resolved. They actually like to know about these things so, keep calling (but maybe only once every two weeks? :) )

[Glee Willis]

In Getchell, we didn't get the blue bins for recycling cans and bottles until pretty late in the game because, after all, there is a recycling dumpster right across the sidewalk from our back door. But when they were finally set up in various places throughout Getchell, many of us rejoiced. But one evening during the summertime as I left work, I noticed that the janitor's big rollaround trash can had a lot of aluminum cans and plastic bottles in it. What the *&&%^#$#@?? So I took it upon myself to chide my co-workers, via an all-staff mailing list, about what a lousy job we were doing of recycling! I explained that I knew it was us, and not our library patrons who were filling up the landfill because in the summer we have relatively few customers compared to during the school year. Guess what?? I received several responses from co-workers who hadn't quite "clued in" to the fact that we had special bins for our recyclables, and they thanked me for calling them to their attention. So the moral of the story is "don't assume your co-workers are clued in!" The clueless sometimes appreciate getting a clue!!

Cheers,

Glee

[Michael Higdon]

Ditto, when I was writing the story from The Nevada Sagebrush office, I told Chuck Price about it and a bunch of people came down and put all the blue bins in our office. But most of the staff got so used to throwing stuff in them that the janitors were upset we had tons of trash in them. Now everyone knows.

It also doesn't help that paper goes in a different place because of the company that takes care of paper and only, glass, plastic and aluminum are supposed to go into the blue ones.

It's a weird system, but it's getting better.

[Virginia Smith]

Hey,

The paper is different from the other recycles because it gets crushed in a compactor and then sold to a company that produces recycled paper.

[Michael Higdon]

Right. I like the paper though because the university makes money off of it. :)

It's a weird cycle from The Nevada Sagebrush perspective because to lower our costs we would lower our circulated papers to eliminated unread papers but the unread papers get recycled and the school gets paid for it.

In the end, the Sagebrush's circulation does little for either side but still kind of a funny concept.

But every bit counts, right?

[Glee Willis]

New problem in the Joe ...

Just bought a milkshake at the new Tahoe Creamery. They aren't (yet) recycling their large plastic milk jugs (or anything else, from what I could see. Are ANY of the food services in the Joe expected to recycle? And if not, why not?????