New Recycling Service on Campus
Sachiko Miyakawa
Environmental Stewardship Program has been working on new programs to reduce the waste on campus in addition to operating recycle services. The Surplus Property Recycling program will receive the disposed office furniture from University facilities and sell to any department and student organization on Kansas University campus with substantially reduced price.
Celeste Hoins, administrative manager of ESP, and its employees have planned the Surplus Property Recycling program since June. Although she has not started the program yet, Hoins said that a dozen of University departments showed interests to the new recycling system. Hoins accepted the surplus furniture from the University departments in summer. The furniture, including desks and chairs, already filled the 2,500 square-feet warehouse on the west campus.
“It’s been pretty successful,” Hoins said. “A lot of people are excited about it and want to know more.”
Hoins said KU Recycling used to collect surplus furniture and donate them to non-profit organizations from 2001 to 2004 until it lost the space for storage. Compared to the old program, the brand-new system allowed the bigger storage space and delivery services for the surplus furniture. The student fee, profit of selling the furniture and fund from grants and Provost will cover the cost of the Surplus Property Recycling program.
The program is still bound by state rules. ESP has not received the official approval of Surplus Property Recycling yet, but Hoins said that the program would start this semester. She expected ESP’s coordination would benefit both providers and receivers of the furniture on campus.
“They [people who want to get rid of furniture] would be able to free up the space in the office immediately as opposed to put in the property accounting services to maintain the website for the surplus trading,” Hoins said. “As far as resell on campus, we are cheap. People can get really nice staff for their offices and departments.”
ESP’s projects are not limited to the Surplus Property Recycling program. The grants from previous years allowed ESP to purchase equipments, including a bailer, and expand the recycling service on campus this year.
Hoins said that the new bailer could process recycle material faster. Because of its efficiency, The KU Recycling team can put more recycle containers on campus and increase some of their sizes so that it can collect more material with large volume such as cardboard. Hoins expected the amount of recycle would keep increasing this year following the growth of the last year.
“I’m hopeful that we will be able to really promote ourselves this semester,” Hoins said.
Margaret Tran, Derby sophomore, who is a coordinator of E.A.R.T.H. and regional director of 2020 Vision, has taken advantage of the KU recycling service.
She uses the recycling service almost everyday both on campus and residence hall, but she finds it inconvenient, too.
“They do a good job recovering basically newspapers, office papers, magazines, aluminum cans, plastics,” Tran said. “Newspapers and office papers, I don’t really see as many as other recycle bins.”
Hoins said that she would like to partner with environmental organizations on campus and promote recycling through performances along with the more supply of recycle containers to campus buildings and residence halls.
Hoins would also like to expand the awareness of recycling to students who live outside the campus. She is planning to provide recycle trailers around the parking lots of the Memorial Stadium or recreation center at least once a month so the students can have an easy access to the recycle service.
“The visibility of our containers encouraged recycling,” said Hoins. “It’s a habit. Once you start recycling, then you feel weird throwing a plastic bottle in a trash.”