INFO GATHERED IN 2019
Chapter 1--students say the stuff in the blue recycling bins goes into the garbage.
Chapter 2--Arianna (student in class) contacts Park Cities Superintendent of Waste/Recycling Division, who says:
- 4 years ago Park Cities refused to pick up recycling at SMU because it was too contaminated
- SMU worked on doing a better job and Park Cities brought back a few bins (3)
- The restaurants on campus do "a very poor job of recycling" and have "no recycling bins near them.
- Park Cities would love to bring more bins if SMU does a better job.
Chapter 3--I discuss it with Professor Bonnie Jacobs (who teaches in the environmental science/studies program), who says:
- There is a campus myth that nothing is recycled
- People see the custodians throw the recycling in the trash and don't realize it's just because that lot of recycling is contaminated
- SMU is partly in University Park and partly in Dallas. Rcycling in the Dallas part goes to a Dallas facility ("Waste Management").
- She suggests I talk to Mason Intlekofer
Chapter 4--Mason Intlekofer (Office of Facilities Planning and Management & SMU's sustainability committee) says:
Good Afternoon,Thank you for reaching out to me, the recycling situation at SMU is complicated and looks bad from the outside looking in.Much of our recycling does not actually go into the recycling dumpsters at the request of the City of University Park. About half of the recycling dumpsters on our campus were pulled by the city last year due to too much contamination in our recycling. We were given an ultimatum from the city to drastically reduce our levels of contamination or they would pull the remaining dumpsters and leave us to find a private waste management company. The city picks up recycling for free with the assumption that they will receive some money back from having it recycled, but if it is too contaminated they do the work of hauling it off but do not charge us like they would with normal waste, losing them money.Our custodial staff was always trained to throw contaminated recycling in the trash to avoid this issue, which is why there is the longstanding idea that SMU just throws everything in the trash. Sadly, after the incident of having dumpsters pulled we had to retrain the staff to be more particular about the contamination because the city had a lower threshold than our staff. This means that our custodial staff is throwing a lot off the recycling bags into the normal trash in order to provide the City of UP with only uncontaminated recycling and thus keep our recycling service on main campus. The recycling is all put in clear bags so that the custodial staff can determine the level of contamination through visual observation.So, to summarize SMU does recycle but we have come under scrutiny for having highly contaminated recycling and thus we must throw away much of the waste put inside recycling bins.We have been working with the Environmental Society to try to reduce the contamination by placing standardized signage on recycling bins, sending informational emails to students, and having booths during Earth Week near Hughes-Trigg teaching about recycling. With the scrutiny on us by the city, all it takes is one person throwing food waste, non-recyclable items, or other contaminated recycling to nullify the proper recycling habits of everyone else. Starbucks cups, grease stained cardboard packaging, and half full water bottles are our biggest issue right now and we have made a point to educate about them specifically.Lastly, I meet with sustainability staff from the Dallas County Community College District as well as other universities in DFW and the topic of recycling was discussed heavily recently. Private recycling companies are raising rates by a large margin and citing the higher average contamination as the reasoning. It is a problem everyone is facing here in DFW and the only way to fix it is by educating people on proper recycling habits.Please let me know if you have any more questions about recycling or other sustainability related matters here at SMU.Thank you,Mason