I heart Recycling
So by now you've all had the chance to take a look into your recycling and trash bins in your building. Any key observations? What seems to be the biggest obstacle to recycling in your building? What might we do to overcome that obstacle?
posted by UVM Eco-Reps Program Coordinator @ 3:28 PM
31 Comments:
The biggest problem i have seen is that people keep throwing away paper. They seem to be good about putting bottles, cans, plastic food containers in the recycling but not plain paper which i find weird. Maybe because it does not have a recycling number on it so they do not know it can be recycled. Maybe it is just too simple and it has never been explained because it is thought that everyone knows to recycle it. I think I will write a note on the recycling posters to explain to people. Overall though I notice people are doing a pretty good job in the independent living community with recycling. I think this must be because many students living back here are returning students and know the swing of things here at UVM and know by now that recycling is the thing to do. In dorms with a lot of freshman, esp. early in the year, recycling might be more of an issue because people might have not been exposed to the concept before and now it is a new behavior they will have to learn.
During my trash room audit I noticed that many of the floors in Tupper had three bins. Two were large and for trash a nd then one was really small for recycling. I feel like with the amount of recycling we do at UVM, this should be the other way. I'm not sure how easy it would be to switch the labels, but if we're trying to promote recycling as much as we should, then the bins need to correlate.
-Olivia B.
The biggest obstacle I saw was that it looked like people didn't know what went where. There was trash in the recycling and recycling in the trash. I wasn't sure if it was deliberate because people didn't care or if it was just because people didn't know. There was a floor meeting in Mercy yesterday for the first floor, so I asked the RA if I could join them to ask people about recycling. I brought items and quizzed people on where they thought the items should go and, based on the results, people just don't know. I had someone tell me a soda bottle can't be recycled.
The obstacle of ignorance is an easy hurdle to jump, so I am going to spend my CBSM exercises trying to inform Mercy Hall. I think the desire to change is there and just information and basic skills need work.
I noticed that people were trying to recycle too much. Most of the floors had it down pretty well, but one just seemed to think that the recycling was the trash bin. I moved some signs so hopefully that will address the problem. Another floor in particular had many recyclable items, like yogurt containers and food boxes, in the trash. Since North 3 is not that big, I hope to go around to the residents and see if they have any questions about what and what cannot be recycled.
~Natalie
The biggest problem we need to tackle is that many people throw plastic lids of compostable cups in trash bins (lids of coffee cups and soup cups). I think it is very confusing to many people that we acutually need to separate the lid and cup. Also, studnets might be too busy to rince them.
I think we should make a sign that tells people what to recycle. Maybe the poster we put last week is not visual enough. So, I suggest we should make a poster with real cups, bottles, plates, usensils, etc, just like the one we had at the Market Place last year.
-Kazuha
The prblem in my building that people don't seem to know the lids of compostable cups (coffee cup, soup cup. etc).
It is understandable that it is kind of coufusing that the lid is recyclable, while the cup is compostable.
So, I think the best way to tackle this problem is to tell people what to recycle with a poster. Maybe the one we put last week is not visual enough, even though it explains very well if you look at it closely. I suggest that we should make a poster with real bottles, papter, cups, plates, etc, just like the pne we had at the Market Place last year.
-Kazuha
Most of the things I have seen in my building are pretty similar to what Zoe and Kaleb said. Copy paper isn't getting recycled, but used tissues are; full bottles are being put in the recycling, but clean clam-shell containers are not. It seems that many students just don't know what to put where. Or they want to see if they can get back to their room before the trash room door closes, so they just dump their trash in the nearest bin and run down the hall (and I'm not even being sarcastic, I have had kids tell me that's what they do). After noting these things, I'd say the biggest obstacles to recycling that my building faces are lack of knowledge about what to recycle and perhaps a fear of asking what's the correct way to dispose of trash and recycling. I know that something I would like to do to overcome the flaws in my residents' recycling habits is collaborate with the other reps for my building to run a recycling orientation for the whole building. I think that seeing something like recycling properly firsthand might help the students in my hall, particularly the freshman, better understand what they're doing right and what they should change.
-Caitlan Stephens
So by now you've all had the chance to take a look into your recycling and trash bins in your building. Any key observations? What seems to be the biggest obstacle to recycling in your building? What might we do to overcome that obstacle?
I have noticed that a lot of times people have bagged their trash in their rooms and have not sorted through it, but just threw the entire bag into the recycling or the trash bins. I do no know if there is a shortage of recylcling bins in the residents' rooms, but I was made aware of one resident so far that did not have one, and failed to recieve any word back from the office manager on getting some. For this reason, I think that it would be helpful to provide more help on what can and cannot be recycled as well as encouraging people to with more positive signage. In addition I noticed that one of my floors has only one recycling bin, as opposed to 3 trash bins. Because of this there is a constant overflow of recyclables and people started to resort to putting those materials in the trash. I think that to solve this problem I'm going to have to speak with the Building services manager.
Over in Chittenden, there was an attempt at recycling. A couple of the trash rooms showed some effort put into separating trash and recycling, but every bin had some sort of contaminant one way or another. The only recycling bin that I couldn't find trash in was sitting next to trash cans full of all sorts of recylables. Also, I saw a lot of food scraps in the trash (and recycling) but not a single compost bin had been used. There was one banana peel in one in the kitchen. So, getting people to start separating their waste seems to be the biggest obstacle, and hopefully getting the word out about UVM's system and asking questions and talking to residents will help change the semi-sorted trash-room situation.
-Laura D.
My building (UHS) is really good about separating correctly, the biggest problem seems to be when something is a pain to separate. for example, a bag of goldfish. People don't take off the paper and throw away the shiny paper lining, they choose either trash or recycling thinking it will be separated there.
The biggest problem I noticed in Living and Learning D, is that most of the paper in the trash room was in the trash bins and not in the recycling bins. There were three large recycling bins. One of them had newspapers (which is a start) but probably was recycled by the building's staff. There were large boxes of paper and magazines sitting in the trash bins. However, most of the bottles and aluminum were in the recycling. Another huge issue, being in the same building as the Marche, is that there was an enormous volume of compostable food containers in the trash. I am talking about 50% of the trash that I saw was taken up by compostable food containers. These large food containers obviously will not fit in the small compost bins. I am wondering if there is a way encourage the composting of these containers elsewhere?
All in all, I think my biggest challenge will be to encourage recycling of paper and composting.
I noticed during my trash audits that the biggest problem seemed to be with people putting a lot of food boxes like cookie and cracker boxes in the trash instead of recycling. I'm not really sure why people wouldn't know to recycle these boxes. Maybe because of the plastics inside the boxes. I also noticed a lot of loose paper, like the kind of things that get taped to your door and handed out at events, in the trash. I think people my have a tendency to get frustrated by the amount of paper we get but I'm not sure why it would all end up in big stacks in the trash instead of the recycling. Maybe we should add a note to recycle on these handouts...
-Alyssa I.
The biggest problem in Wills is that there is only one official trash room (on the 2nd floor), and everything in this room is all mixed up. I am trying to move recycling bins and trash bins to either side of the room. Also the compost bins in that trash room had an apple core, and that was all. The compost bin from the 3rd floor kitchen was stolen - not cool, and my signs had been ripped down - even more not cool. But the first floor in the lounge area has recycling bins and trash bins scattered around, there are signs and it even says what can and can't be recycled but no one seems to want to sort anything out. The compost bin in the 1st floor kitchen is thriving, it is full every time I went to empty it. I think I want to get a bigger bucket. There is just a lack of effort in my building, but hopefully if there is an informational session it could get better.
-Genna
I agree with Kazuha. One of the biggest problems I've seen is confusion with the compostable containers and their lids. I think the posters that have examples taped up to show exactly what can go in each bin are really helpful.
One thing that I'm not sure how we could fix is laziness. I think by now most people at UVM would know that a plastic water bottle can go in the recycling. It's frustrating to see plastic in the trash when a recycling bin is right next to it. Maybe we could motivate people by telling them (with a poster/sign) how much energy they are saving by recycling one plastic bottle, one aluminum can, etc.
My building seems to be pretty good about recycling. There are a few contaminantes in the recycling bins, such as food and liquids, but overall everything is where it should be.
Abby Bentley
I was surprised to find that there was not so much contamination in the recycling as I had expected. But I was disheartened to find how much in the trash could have been recycled! I don't know whether the problem lies in convenience/accessibility or ignorance. Or as someone else suggested, the problem could be that there are far more trash cans than recycling bins. It does leave me confused, though, because it does seem like we have far more recyclable waste than we do trash.
Overall, I think encouraging people to properly sort their trash is going to be the biggest obstacle, and I think the first step will be to keep educating about what goes where-whether that be with signs, direct communication, or in some other way.
-Anya Gedrath-Smith
The biggest and most consistent problem that I noticed was the presence of recyclable bottles, cans and glass containers in the trash. All of the bottles still had their caps on and many still contained liquids, which suggests to me that perhaps people are simply not motivated to take the extra moment to remove the cap from the bottle, empty the bottle, and place the bottle in the recycling bin. I think that if I make some VERY VISUAL AND NOTICEABLE signs to hang above the trash cans as a plea/reminder to take a moment to empty their containers and recycle them, people will take that extra second, or at least a second thought!
I was actually surprised that people in my building seemed to do such a good job in sorting between trash and recycling; maybe I just happened to come on a good day. There were only a few contaminations in the recycling bins that I noticed--a few candy wrappers, and some plastic bags. The trash bins weren't quite as good--as others have been saying, there were a few bottles, with the caps on and liquids in them. Everything was inside plastic bags, so I guess people just put everything together in their room and never bothered to sort it out when they took it to the trash room. I wonder why people don't just use the recycling bins in their room and sort stuff out ahead of time? More obvious recycling signs could maybe help, but I think since it's just a few people doing this, who probably just don't care, there isn't a whole lot I can do. There were definitely some food stuffs that could have been composted, but now that the composting bin has been in there for some time and I've been trying to spread the word to people about it, hopefully that will get better.
Davis has been really good about recycling on most of the floors. As I looked around there were not too many contaminants in the recycling bins, however I did notice some recyclables in the trash. A lot of papers, boxes and plastic bags were in the trash. I think the biggest problem is people not knowing that everything can go into the recycling bins altogether. I know last year, the recycling bins in my dorm said that paper went in a separate bin from bottles and cans, and I think people are still under that impression, especially because they are just labeled RECYCLING and not paper or plastic. There are signs by each trash area that the recycling bins are EVERYTHING IN ONE BIN but people most likely don't pay much attention to them. I have made new signs that will hopefully catch peoples eyes so that more people will recycle as much as they can as opposed to throwing them out.
Across all the floors of my building, the majority of people are doing well with which bins they put their 'trash' in. In terms of contaminations found within the trash bins, most of the contaminants are plastics and cardboard boxes, like Ritz Crackers, Cereal, etc. All things considered people are definitely conscious of where they place their trash/recyclables, but there is some room for improvement. One thing that a friend of mine noted to me was that the for a few days, the lid to the closest recycling bin to the door was closed, so people threw their recyclables into the trash instead of disposing of them properly.
Just an interesting control mechanism of sorts; keep the bins open and people will use them more frequently.
-Brian S
One of the biggest problems that I ran into was things in the trash that could be recycled in the trash. There was good amount of paper in the trash, though it was good to see that all of the pizza boxes I found were in the recycling. Also, though they were properly composted, it was strange to see more than one uneaten pieces of fruit in the compost buckets. Since I am in Buckham, which is mostly freshman, I think that Zoe's idea of first years not understanding or getting into the habit of recycing could be responsible for the paper in the trash among other things. Hopefully this can be solved by making a specific sign to put in the trash rooms, and to mention it to some of the residents.
-Jon C.
I have noticed that my residents are not really sure what to do with the compostable to go containers. I often find them in the trash. I think i am going to put a cardboard box in the trash rooms for these containers because they wont fit into the compost bins.
-Liz
The biggest problem I noticed was just the assortment of recyclable items found in the trash and garbage in the recycling bins. I guess this just suggests that we need to keep letting people know what goes where. Also, I was overwhelmed at the immense of amount of water bottles that were in the recycling. Although, it is a positive thing that these bottles are going to the right place, I think it would be good to try and limit the amount of these disposable containers.
-Kalyn
I think the biggest problem was really just the assortment of garbage in the recycling and recyclable items in the trash. I guess this just suggests that people need more clarification with what goes where. I couldn't help but notice that basically the only item consuming the recycling bins were water bottles. Although it is good that these are at least ending up at the right place, hopefully we can do some promoting to decrease the use of disposal water bottles.
I think the biggest issue I have observed so far is usually regarding the typical weekend trash: beer and food. People have begun to collpase and recycle pizza boxes, but they throw away almost full pies when they could be composted. Also, as we learned the boxes that beer and soda come in are not recyclable, yet they keep getting placed in the recycle bin. So I guess these issues are not THAT major, since it seems people at least have the intention to recycle, they just need to take it one step further by learning what CAN'T be recycled. Also I noticed a lot of the "trash" consisted of items that were more unwanted rather than un-usable, such as cd's and clothes. This is my fault, for I have still not created a "give or take" box to put items in that are still perfectly good but unwated by the owner.
I noticed a few different items that could be recycled being thrown in the trash. Most of the time it was cardboard. Like Zoe said, I thought cardboard was one of those obvious things to recycle, but clearly not. To try and deter people from throwing out their cereal boxes etc. I made a colorful sign that asked people to please put cardboard in one of the 3 large recycling bins, and posted it above the trash can. Later when I went back to check the progress, there was still cardboard being thrown to the trash. So I guess
some other way of informing people is necessary.
-Anna S.
LOTS of recycling in the trash! Mostly paper, that comes in trash bags of mixed recycling and garbage. These are presumably unsorted bags from student rooms. Also, there was a ton of compost in the trash. Hopefully the composting system with help with this issue. I am also seeing recycling in the trash: I think one of the issues is the color of the bins. They are labelled, but the recycling and trash bins are the same color- usually green, which is typically associated with recycling. Film plastic and foil-like plastic are also contaminants I am seeing in the recycling- likely people are unaware that these can not be recycled. All in all, most of Millis was pretty decent and we just need to clear a few things up.
The biggest problem that I have seen is a laziness regarding collapsing boxes. There are stacks of them strewn about the floor and none of them are collapsed as they should be. Also, there are a number of trash items in the recycling, such as dirty tissues. It makes me so happy that people are making such an effort to recycle, but it is hard when they do not now what gets recycled. A lot of the kids on my floor have told me that they find the recycling/trash room confusing because everything recyclable can go in any of the recycling bins, and they all think that they need to sort things.
It seems like people are often too lazy to recycle things that are heavily soiled-- they don't take the time to scrape out remaining food wastes into the compost and then recycle the containers. I suppose I can't blame them, when the compost is all the way downstairs. At least they aren't contaminating the recycling for the most part. Another issue is that people seem to not want to walk all the way down the hallway to recycle. All of the rooms are supposed to have recycle bins, but some are missing, and the walk down the hall seems too much when their room is closer to the trash. Another small but widespread problem is bottlecaps. Most people throw away bottles with the caps on, instead of removing the caps. Not a huge deal... and "acceptable contaminant" I think was the phrase, but I think people just don't know that the caps shouldn't be recycled with the bottles.
Emily Menzel
I saw a lot of lazy sorting when looking in the trash rooms of the hall. A lot of plastic bottles were in the regular trash. I’m pretty sure that everyone knows plastic bottles can be recycled so this can only be accounted to laziness. In addition, I’ve noticed a lot of bottled water bottles in general. Its really disappointing that people are actually spending money to buy water! I don’t see that many people in classes with bottled water, so I guess they all secretly drink it in the dorms.
-Cassie McGoldrick
Most of the issues that I found involved paper in the trash bins. I think that many people know to put cans and bottles, etc. in the bins but because they use paper on a constant daily basis, it might seem trivial to separate trash and paper. I did notice that for the most part, big cardboard boxed and big pieces of paper find their way into the recycle while its mostly computer paper and scraps that are being thrown into the trash. Hopefully, with a little bit of teaching, we can change around how Harris throws out trash and recycling.
-Anya Rifkin
I remember, when I first looked into the recycling and trash bins, I was actually impressed and a little surprised. I came into this job under the impression that Harris-Millis was somewhat of a madhouse of partying and sloppiness, and would need a lot of work. However, people seemed to care enough about their waste that they split it into trash and recycling. Of course, there were the little things: like cans with food waste still in them, or pizza boxes with cheese still attached. It seemed like the biggest obstacle would be to educate people about the recycling process, the people at the MRF who work that process, and contamination of recycling bins. I remember thinking that it would be a good idea to have a few educational events to help people understand how they can be less wasteful.
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