NU picks up recycling efforts

The nation celebrates Earth Day on April 22 each year, but for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, every day is Earth Day.

With the continued support of faculty and students, the university recycled nearly 35 percent of its waste in 2008, despite ever-increasing amounts of trash from a growing student body.

“Instead of emphasizing individual days to recycle, it’s been a goal of UNL’s to put together a program that constantly recycles year-round,” said Keith Ebbert, recycling coordinator and UNL graduate student in community and regional planning.

The recycling program might be booming, but it hasn’t always been this way.   
In 2000, the program suffered budget cuts and was left without a recycling coordinator.

“There was sort of a shift, and there were a couple of years in there where the program was pretty mediocre,” said Rich Wahl, construction manager for Facilities Management and Planning Landscape Services.

In 2004 and 2005, the university filled the recycling coordinating position with a graduate student post. Since then, the program has begun to pick up – literally.  Waste reduction climbed from a mere 12 percent to 35 percent.

“The university as a whole has really come up to bat and has done very well,” Wahl said.
UNL practices the three “R’s”: reduce, reuse and recycle.

Most recycling happens within the housing department. After all, housing accounts for almost 70 percent of campus waste, said Glen Schumann, associate director of housing facilities operations.

Students in the residence halls can recycle aluminum cans, plastic bottles and cardboard.

“We don’t have bins for glass, because, frankly, we don’t use a lot of glass on campus,” Schumann said.

Chances are, however, if a glass bottle is thrown in with the plastic bottles, it will get sorted out and recycled.

“Most of our waste actually comes from dining services,” Schumann said.

Dining services recycles tin cans, cardboard and some plastics.

That’s not all housing does: They also reuse materials.

“If we have leftover paint or lumber, we call the theater department, and they use it in productions,” Schumann said. “Our approach is that anytime we have something to throw away, we ask the question and find out if there is a place for it.

“All that will be recycled,” he said as he pointed to a pile of boxes, folders and paper stacked in a corner of his office.

Schumann admitted the university hasn’t found a place for every reusable material, but it’s trying.

The university has even found a company that reuses grease from food services and another that will recycle UNL’s hundreds of old phones taken out of the residence halls this fall.

“The whole campus is into recycling,” Schumann said. “It’s a campus-wide effort.”
Landscape services also finds ways to reuse and recycle.

“We take branches, brush and non-recyclable wood pallets and grind them up for mulch,” Ebbert said.

Also, the university has requested contractors involved in all new construction and renovations to meet Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Standards, meaning leftover building materials will be reused instead of sent to the landfill.

“Statistics tell us that 40 percent of landfill waste comes from new construction, so it’s important to build to LEED standards,” Ebbert said.

Despite all the success the program has had, UNL could do more to educate students, Schumann said.

“Availability and emphasis on recycling in dorms and greek houses could be improved,” Katie Heineman, a junior biological sciences major at UNL, wrote in an e-mail.

Heineman is the garden chair of Ecology Now!, a student organization that strives to increase awareness of environmental issues on campus.

“The UNL recycling program does the best it can with the limited amount of manpower and financial resources it has available,” she said.

Heineman said she feels the UNL administration could do more to prioritize recycling.
As far as finances, UNL applies for two recycling grants every year. This year, the university secured one grant that helped purchase recycling bins. Another grant UNL applied for, but didn’t receive, was meant for promotional programs, which could have made up for what Schumann called a lack of student education.

“We will definitely be applying again next year,” Wahl said. “We’re not going to miss an opportunity to build our program.”

In the meantime, the university will continue to rely on students and faculty to take the extra effort and drop their trash in recycle bins.

courtneypitts@dailynebraskan.com