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Recycling: it seems like a task many of us should be able to do quickly and efficiently. Buy a coke out of a machine, consume it, save the bottle and throw it in a receptacle. The only true mental effort put forth is to look for signs that have a “reduce, reuse, recycle” symbol on them. This sounds painless, right? Surprisingly enough, it’s almost embarrassing to think of how bad a job the University of Louisville is doing on recycling. This is not to put the blame completely on them, as students, faculty and staff play just as vital a role in the recycling process.
At U of L, there should be more of an emphasis placed on recycling. With the university’s 10-year initiative to go green, this is something the school should enforce. Many residence halls do not even have bins for recyclables, leaving students responsible for taking their items somewhere off campus. Perhaps it should not be entirely up to U of L, but to the food service provider as well. After all, they are the ones producing much of the material that could be recycled. And our old provider, Chartwell’s, had just enacted all new green policies, converting containers to recyclable materials and placing bins throughout the dining areas. Either way, something needs to be done when it comes to this campus’ recycling efforts.
Take the Student Activities Center for example. There are many restaurants to purchase food from, and nearly all have at least one container that could be recycled after use. Instead of dispersing several recycling containers amongst the entire facility, there is a plethora of trash cans. Although it is up to the students to place the items in the bins, the only containers readily available are designated only for plastic bottles. And these small bins are always overflowing. This shows that students are willing to make the effort—the administration is not. People on campus are in a hurry for classes, meetings, study groups and a world of other things. Going out of the way to find a receptacle for an empty energy drink can is too much to ask for some. Placing more and better recycling bins in extra areas could be a fix for those in an everyday time crunch.
If there is not enough space to add receptacles, another tactic would be to decrease the amount of trash the university puts out. At the coffee shops on campus, there is one step they are taking towards going green. By offering low-cost reusable coffee mugs, they are cutting down on the amount of paper cups used. This is obviously a great start, as they offer cheaper coffee with the use of these mugs. But perhaps there needs to be a greater push to get students to buy them. There are still tons of paper cups in our trash. Students already have at least $175 allocated to purchase food on campus. Does it make sense to pay more for a drink when you can use a small part of this money for a reusable mug and spend around half the price on your coffee each morning?
The answer to going green is to engage the university community as well as the food service provider, Sodexo, with cooperative strategies that can benefit both. There are those out there who do not care about recycling or going green. Perhaps if there were more options that promoted money-saving, there would be an increased amount of interest in recycling. Would it be possible for all of the food service providers to allow some sort of reusable cup strategy? Drinks account for a substantial amount of the money spent at restaurants, and lowering the cost of that could save students money and help cut down the amount of waste left behind. At the end of the day, it is the responsibility of both the university and its population to work together to help the environment. Let’s try to move forward and keep the university going in the right direction: green. Reusable mugs are a start, but we have to wonder whether or not this should be considered enough.
