No Bins? No Problem.
Waiting on the city isn’t helping. We students need to take recycling into our own hands
By Dallin Hunt
Southern Virginia University does not have an official recycling program. Therefore, many students may feel that recycling isn’t an option.
One student summarized the general sheepish feeling in a single statement. “I mean, I’m not opposed to recycling, I just don’t have any way to do it.” The truth is, there is a perfectly feasible way for each of us to help out, and we have the responsibility and opportunity to make time for it.
Why we need to recycle
The official waste management and recycling website of Rockbridge County, VA, lists benefits such as these:
- Recycling reduces litter.
- Recycling saves energy.
- Recycling saves tax payers’ money.
- Recycling reduces the size of disposal sites and increases the life of existing landfills.
- Recycling saves resources.
If you want more specific reasons, seas of statistics testify to the need for diligent recycling, including the following gems: Americans purchased over 2.6 million tons of PET (Polyethylene Terephthalate) bottles in 2010, of which nearly 1.9 million tons were wasted. This type of plastic takes over 400 years to biodegrade, so it’s not going anywhere anytime soon, except landfills. Bottled water sales have been increasing, and research conducted earlier this year shows that 35 billion plastic water bottles are sold annually in the US.
It is estimated that every year, approximately 8 million tons of plastic ends up in the ocean. That’s a whole lot of bottles and six pack rings for fish to get stuck in. (If you really want to cry, watch the video of the sea turtle with a straw stuck in its nose.)
Around 4 billion trees are cut down each year for paper use, and North Americans use about 500 pounds of paper per year per person. Helping to reduce the amount of paper wasted and thus the number of trees cut down could have enormous environmental and economic benefits.
As president of the Southern Virginia Recycling Club, Megan Barfuss, ‘19, put it, “It seems obvious. It’s going to benefit the world and prevent pollution.”
Not to mention, you’ll feel good doing it.
Why there is no official university program
I spoke to Sam Porter, Associate Director of Campus Operations, and he wanted to make it well understood that the university is not against recycling. The university is simply at a stage of development in which there are too many items on the priority list that come before it, such as infrastructural improvements. “We’d have to dedicate a resource to it…and there is just not enough of a push,” said Porter. “It requires man-power we don’t have…Physical facilities is already overworked.”
In the past the city of Buena Vista set bins on campus and collected recycled materials weekly, but this ended around 2012, likely due to city budget constraints, Porter explained.
Past students also worked together to set out bins and collect recycling weekly, but since these students graduated, old recycling bins have turned into trash cans, with nobody to properly sort and dispose of waste.
What we can do
First, we can add our efforts to those of Megan Barfuss, who is currently working to put bins on campus and organize a team of students to sort and transport recycled materials to the Lexington or Buena Vista recycling center weekly. Helping in this effort would make recycling a much more convenient option for every student on campus, particularly those without cars. Barfuss hopes to receive funding from the university to purchase bins, but is mostly concerned with student efforts. Be somebody who makes recycling easy for others!
We should also recycle at home, like Riley Corrigan, ‘20, and Mike Meyers, ‘20, who each collect recyclable materials at their own apartments. Corrigan said, “Every once in a while one of my mod mates takes me to the recycling center across the street from JJ’s and we drop it off there. Also, we collect plastic films and one of us takes them to Walmart when we can.”
When you buy a smoothie from Jonezzey’s, it may not be second nature to clean and keep the plastic cup for recycling. But doing so is really not terribly difficult.
As Barfuss said, “You’ve just got to be conscious about choices. It’s not the way we’ve grown up… we weren’t thinking long term when all these conveniences [such as plastic cups, straws, etc.] came about.”
Even simpler, and by far the most important action to take, is to reduce the amount of waste we produce in the first place. It’s easy enough to keep a reusable water bottle, use reusable grocery bags, and say, “no straw, thanks.” A sea turtle might thank you later.
