BYU NewsNet - Club's Goal is Better Recycling of Plastics at BYU

By HOLLY VAN WOERKOM

BYU's recycling program, which seems to recycle everything, is missing one item: plastic.

So students in the BYU Recycles Club have decided to do something about it and have begun their own initiative this semester to collect plastic bottles every weekday in the Wilkinson Student Center.

"People at BYU don't recycle not because they don't care, not because they don't want to, just because it's hard," said Macrae McDermott, a sophomore from Atlanta majoring in international relations. "We want to make sure people know we're going to take care of everything. We're not creating additional work, just additional opportunities."

A few times a week, three or four of the students of BYU Recycles are responsible for collecting the bottles, counting them, and taking the bottles to a drop-off by Provo Towne Centre.

Students have lobbied for plastic recycling for more than a decade: they have presented petitions, worked with student government, held short-term collection events and written letters to the editor.

So why hasn't BYU started recycling plastics?

"When reducing waste on campus, we still see our greatest opportunity by focusing on paper recycling," said Bill Rudy, recycling trainer for BYU Grounds Maintenance.

"What the students are doing with collecting plastic is not effective recycling in and of itself," Rudy said. "But if their promoting increases recycling awareness and can be linked to increased recycling in items we really have a lot of, especially paper, then I think their efforts could be effective."

About 33 percent of BYU's garbage is office paper, Rudy said, which means every year more than 1,000 tons of recyclable office paper are sent to the landfill. In contrast, the 90 tons or so of plastic bottles make up only about 2 percent of BYU's garbage.

Roy Peterman, director of BYU Grounds Maintenance, said in addition to the unrecycled office paper, 58 percent of newspaper and 22 percent of cardboard is not being recycled on campus.

"Why don't we try and do better at what we already do, and what we do have available," Peterman said. "They [the students] are focusing on wanting to take something small when it won't have an impact. I think that's terribly shortsighted of them. I think it's a waste of time."

However, both Peterman and Rudy expressed a desire for students and faculty to take advantage of the recycling services available to them. BYU Recycling has more than 4,000 bins on campus, and will provide any office or location with a bin upon request.

Rudy said some people might be confused about paper recycling, citing the common misconception that paper clips and staples must be removed from paper before recycling.

One factor that makes plastic recycling difficult is the cost. All of BYU's current recycling operations are self sufficient, and even save the university money, sometimes as much as $125,000 in a year. Rudy said he is constantly researching options, but so far no economically feasible solutions have been found for plastic recycling on campus.

Also, plastic recycling is difficult to separate, Rudy said. There are seven recognized categories of plastic, so it can be difficult to separate and sort plastics sufficiently to get a uniform raw material to make a new product.

"What we really want to do is develop a culture at BYU that thinks that conservation is the normal thing, and recycling is part of conservation," Rudy said.

Darren Jackson, an organizer of BYU Recycles, said he hopes the plastic recycling will have a positive impact on recycling in general. "When you recycle something, all of a sudden, you just gave it worth that it didn't already have," he said. "It starts to make you think, what else am I just throwing away that does have potential? It's a thought process."

"Before we had this idea, I didn't consider myself an uber-recycler," Jackson said. "Before, I didn't even recycle stuff at my house. It's interesting to see the change in yourself as you are involved in something like this."

Many of the students are drawn to the cause because recycling is something they are accustomed to in their hometown.

"My passion for recycling comes mostly from my childhood near Portland where it's a way of life, and like a Southern Californian without her beach or a Texan without his barbecue, I felt lost my freshman year here," said junior Eric Harker, who created BYUrecycles.org, the group's Web site. "I have been surprised at how far BYU has come with recycling, and we just want to take it that much further."

Walking into one of the weekly meetings, one student immediately glanced at the small trash can near the door, picked out an empty Sprite bottle, and slipped it into the plastic bag he was carrying, which was already full of dozens of bottles. Following this incident, several students commented that recycling is constantly on their mind now. MacKenzie Mayo, a freshman from Bloomfield Hills, Mich., said she has started collecting bottles from the girls in her hall, and the response has been encouraging.

"We are members of the group of people for whom this university exists, and we are committed to achieving a goal for ourselves and for the university," Mayo said. "And we aren't just talking about it; we are doing things to prove that we are serious about making plastics recycling - and environmental awareness in general - part of the mindset of BYU."