Roger Dunn didn’t waste paper when he wanted to vent about what he saw as a lack of recycling at Northwestern. He sent an e-mail to the Students for Environmental and Ecological Development listserv instead.
Out of frustration at what he called “a problem across campus,” the McCormick sophomore tried to motivate SEED members to increase recycling awareness.
“All that I ask is that SEED take a higher priority on making recycling easier for students, let them be aware that recycling is going on at NU and that it is not another idea without implementation,” Dunn wrote in his e-mail.
Dunn said he noticed students throwing trash into recycling bins at Kemper Hall, which forced the housekeeping staff to throw all the contents of the blue bins into the trash.
“There is a domino effect when someone puts unacceptable items in a recycling bin,” said Julie Aplington, manager of refuse and recycling at NU.
An entire load of recycling bins can be rejected if there are too many unacceptable items, Aplington said.
Genevieve Maricle, a Weinberg sophomore and president of SEED, said that the organization often has struggled with the issue of recycling.
“We definitely want to work on it more, but the problem is that it’s easy to just focus on recycling and dismiss that as enough,” she said.
Maricle added that people are more conscious of recycling in residential colleges because they can earn points toward their housing, whereas the same incentive isn’t there for residential halls.
“If Kemper had points, that would entice people,” she said.
But because Kemper and other halls don’t use the point system, Maricle, Dunn and other students said that people will recycle only if bins are accessible.
“The key to a good recycling program is convenience,” said Brian Cadena, a Weinberg freshman and Willard Residential College’s recycling chair. “It’s got to be just as easy to recycle as it is to throw things away or people run into problems.”
Cadena said Willard’s Wednesday night pick-ups — when students place their recyclable items outside their doors — make recycling almost effortless.
NU administrators also are encouraging students to recycle with their annual move-out program called “Take it or leave it, don’t throw it away,” Aplington said.
From June 2 to June 12, NU Recycling will collect clothes, linens and nonperishable food in boxes placed in the lobbies of residence halls, Norris University Center, and the Sports Pavilion and Aquatics Center. Donated items will go to the Howard Brown Health Center and a men’s and women’s shelter organization.
“Personal responsibility is part of recycling,” Aplington said. “It just doesn’t make sense to throw away items that can provide valuable resources.”
