2008 Woodie Awards
Recycle, re-use reduce: concept learned by Lewis
Stephanie White
Issue date: 11/14/05 Section: Opinions
Lewis University is known for its beautiful campus, plethora of flowers blooming year round, and green grass everywhere on campus. You will always see maintenance and groundskeepers running about every day to make the campus look flawless.
But more often you see cans in bushes, trash being collected at the fences on windy days, and unfortunately, students throwing away half of their dinners. With how much money it costs to go here, don't you think we should be more cost-efficient with all of our resources and try to benefit from spending less?
Looking around campus, you will never be out of sight of a trash can. You can't walk 20 yards without seeing a trash can. But what about recycling? Aren't we teaching kids K-12 to recycle and be good to mother earth?
So why is it that I have only seen three recycling bins on campus? One in front of the Academic Building, one outside of the Den, and one upstairs in the Rec Center. That is not enough receptacles to keep students aware of recycling as an option to throwing away the tons of bottles we use every day, and the papers we read, and the papers we receive from our teachers.
The U.S Environmental Protection Agency website and Waste Management website both stated recycling is at an all-time high of 50 percent of products being reused, and their [Waste Management] goal for 2012 being 55 percent reused products in the United States. However, people only recycle 12 percent of 13 billion plastic bottles per year and Lewis could help with both of those issues. You can only buy plastic bottles on campus (besides a fountain drink) and I do not see the problem with adding next to the garbage cans in the cafeteria a recycling bin for plastic bottles. Lewis would have huge reductions in waste.
Other benefits could arise from recycling more on campus. We could analyze the time it takes for the cleaning services to empty at least two trash bins per floor of all the buildings on campus and all the trash bins you see outside. By reducing the trash, they would not have to empty them every day, leading to more time for cleaning and getting done earlier. This would make everything more time-efficient and cost-efficient.
But more often you see cans in bushes, trash being collected at the fences on windy days, and unfortunately, students throwing away half of their dinners. With how much money it costs to go here, don't you think we should be more cost-efficient with all of our resources and try to benefit from spending less?
Looking around campus, you will never be out of sight of a trash can. You can't walk 20 yards without seeing a trash can. But what about recycling? Aren't we teaching kids K-12 to recycle and be good to mother earth?
So why is it that I have only seen three recycling bins on campus? One in front of the Academic Building, one outside of the Den, and one upstairs in the Rec Center. That is not enough receptacles to keep students aware of recycling as an option to throwing away the tons of bottles we use every day, and the papers we read, and the papers we receive from our teachers.
The U.S Environmental Protection Agency website and Waste Management website both stated recycling is at an all-time high of 50 percent of products being reused, and their [Waste Management] goal for 2012 being 55 percent reused products in the United States. However, people only recycle 12 percent of 13 billion plastic bottles per year and Lewis could help with both of those issues. You can only buy plastic bottles on campus (besides a fountain drink) and I do not see the problem with adding next to the garbage cans in the cafeteria a recycling bin for plastic bottles. Lewis would have huge reductions in waste.
Other benefits could arise from recycling more on campus. We could analyze the time it takes for the cleaning services to empty at least two trash bins per floor of all the buildings on campus and all the trash bins you see outside. By reducing the trash, they would not have to empty them every day, leading to more time for cleaning and getting done earlier. This would make everything more time-efficient and cost-efficient.
