There is good news for the Saint Anselm campus, the college is working towards being full scale recycling campus wide. However, what is the hold up and why haven’t these changes been made sooner? Everyone has seen the plastic Davison cups spilling out of the trash cans around campus. Why aren’t there facilities inside Davison and the Coffee shop to recycle these and the plastic utensils?
Students have the choice to separate the trash and the recycling from their dorm rooms before bringing it to the dumpsters, but on campus they there is no place to separate them. When prospective students come to tour the school they see plastic cups spilling out of trash cans and they see a school that does not recycle.
The school claims the hesitation is due to the cost of the receptacles. Yes, a container that will last in the ever changing New Hampshire weather for more than a year is expensive but what is the trade off? Putting non-biodegradable material into landfills because the school is more concerned about the campus being aesthetically pleasing? This should not be an acceptable reason.
According to recyclingacrossamerica.org, Americans throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour. Think about the number of water bottles and plastic cups you buy in Davison every day; for every five bottles recycled provides enough fiber fill for one ski jacket. Now think over the course of an academic year how much filling for jackets is wasted at Saint A’s. Recycled plastic is also used for carpeting, landscaping tools, textiles, and outdoor furniture.
Another concern for having recycling receptacles on campus is that it will promote illegal drinking. Students are going to drink if they want to drink regardless of recycling containers; having recycling just gives them the option to not throw them in the garbage or on the ground. Alcohol101plus.org’s study reported that 82% of college students under the age of 21 admitted to drinking alcohol within the past year, and that 69% admitted to drinking alcohol in within the last 30 days. If college students want to drink they are going to with or without recycling containers.
The statistics are not specific to Saint A’s, however majority of recycling here is made during the week by paper, cups, bottles, and plastic utensils, and not by beer cans. There is a large quantity of beer cans and bottles produced over the weekends that ground keepers already pick up; having recycling containers around campus won’t increase that. Hopefully it will decrease the amount of discarded plastic items during the week.
Intoxicated students may not think to put their cans in a recycling bin but sober students during the week will be less likely to leave cups on sidewalks or in snow banks.
It is great that the school is finally making strides towards being more green, however why hasn’t this already happened? Recycling is not a new concept and the benefits by far outweigh the negatives.
There is currently a compactor installed behind the Daley building, but until there are receptacles around campus and in the residential areas there won’t be much progress towards recycling.