Where does Bethel’s trash go?
Improved recycling education could move campus closer to composting in the future.
With one deep, hesitant breath and a crinkling of her nose, sophomore Jessica Nafe reached into the trash bag. Paper, plastic and cardboard were plunked onto the table. It had all been put into the wrong bin.
“People didn’t realize that all those things were recyclable,” Nafe said, reflecting on her class activity taught by Kenneth Petersen, the department chair of the environmental studies program at Bethel University.
“It isn’t always pretty and it doesn’t always smell nice but we’re kind of trying to satisfy our curiosity.”
— Kenneth Petersen
The activity is all part of a “garbology” lab project for Environment and Humanity, a 100-level class offered every semester. In this lab, students take a bag of garbage from somewhere on Bethel’s campus and empty it out to inspect the contents.
Is recyclable material making it into the correct bins at Bethel? This is what these students aim to learn.
“It isn’t always pretty and it doesn’t always smell nice but we’re kind of trying to satisfy our curiosity,” Petersen said. While Petersen doesn’t keep track of the data from the garbology lab, he has noticed a small trend.
“What I found over the years that I’ve been doing this is it seems like we’re gradually getting better as a community,” Petersen said. “I think a lot of that has to do with an evolution in the types of containers we use. I think it’s much clearer and obvious now where recyclables go and where trash goes.”
Sara Wyse, the faculty chair of the green council at Bethel has seen this topic tossed around at meetings since she started on the council seven years ago.
“We talk about waste and the care of our resources in pretty much every meeting,” Wyse said. Within the past year, the green council added the idea of composting to the mix. After looking into the possibility with Ramsey County, they had to put the idea on hold.
“Eventually we’re gonna move in that direction, but right now we have to do better with our garbage waste and recycling and that should be our primary area of focus,” Wyse said.
The problem is not that Bethel has to recycle better to get the green light for composting. Walters, Bethel’s waste management company, said that Bethel is already doing a good job with recycling. The issue keeping Bethel away from composting is cost. Disposing of trash costs more than recycling because trash is heavily taxed. In addition, composting would add $300 a month to Bethel’s current waste budget.
“A first goal needs to be improving our recycling so we can start saving money on trash and then we might have some money left over to do a better job with composting,” said Rebecca Seaberg, math professor. Seaberg is a recent member of the green council and took part in the composting conversation with Walters.
Seaberg suspects Ramsey County may soon require businesses to provide recycling and composting services. “Hennepin County within the next 2–3 years is going require all businesses to separate their organics,” Seaberg said. “So it’s coming.”
Even Ramsey County has improved upon its recycling habits within the last several years. More than 48,000 tons of recycling were processed in 2016 than 2010. Ramsey County also reported an increase of organic waste sent to compost, achieving the largest increase between 2013 and 2015.
While Ramsey County is making strides in recycling and composting, the green council said the Bethel community must get on board for composting in order to allow it on campus. Their proposal for this is through better education.
“If we’re not in the habit of already thinking about our trash, and what goes where and making responsible decisions over our waste, composting will be a fad,” Wyse said.
As a next step, the green council set up two tables near Royal Grounds and the Dining Center displaying recyclables students and faculty encounter around campus.
Bethel recycles all plastics 1–7 on campus, but unfortunately it is not clear how to sort trash. According to Petersen, Bethel has a comprehensive list of what can be recycled on campus on a webpage somewhere.
“I’m not even sure if I could find it right now if I had to,” Petersen said.
According to Petersen, it can be a big problem if we don’t know how to recycle correctly. Many may think throwing non-recyclable items into a recycling container doesn’t really matter; however, this is not true.
“Education is the biggest part and the easiest way to solve this problem.”
— Jessica Nafe
“The people who end up working with these (the recycling) sometimes reject some sizeable quantities of recyclable materials that have been contaminated by small amounts of non recyclable stuff,” Petersen said. “At that point it all becomes landfill trash.”
A commonly proposed solution within the green council is clear — consistent signage explaining where our trash goes. This solution is a takeaway Nafe had from the garbology lab.
“Education is the biggest part and the easiest way to solve this problem,” Nafe said. “When they’re standing there making the decision to throw it away or recycle it, they have all the information they need right there.”
