Spring Break
Editorial: Use that recycling bin
Issue date: 10/4/07 Section: Editorial/Opinion
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10/04/07 - Last fiscal year the university paid $655,304 to dispose of 3,052 tons of trash. To put that in perspective, that's the cost of about 55 students paying in-state tuition. There's no doubt that money could be better spent elsewhere.
Saving the university money is as simple as putting a piece of paper in a green recycling bin or rinsing out that soda can and dropping it into a blue bin. The act takes seconds and saves money and the environment.
The university recycled just 12 percent of its waste last fiscal year according to the university's Solid Waste and Recycling Office. That's a dismal figure and the university could do better if students and faculty pitched in.
There are thousands of recycling bins spread throughout campus. Every resident living in a residence hall receives not one, but two bins. Offices already have them and giant, 95-gallon bins are scattered about campus. The bins are almost as ubiquitous as the trash itself.
But recycling is not limited to properly sorting waste. Why buy a bottle of water when a refillable container serves the same purpose and saves money and plastic? Why not reuse the backside of that first draft of a report to take notes rather than busting out a brand new sheet of paper. Have a notebook that's half full? Don't toss it, use the other half. It's estimated that paper takes up more than half the space in landfills.
And recycling doesn't stop at the university's front entrance. Trash is rapidly becoming a local, state and global issue. Rhode Island officials estimate the state's central landfill in Johnston will run out of room by 2011 or even sooner. Thousands of miles away, Olympic officials have expressed concern about the pollution in Beijing ahead of the 2008 Olympics.
The university's recycling Web site lists some horrifying figures. For example, if you were to line up bumper to bumper, a string of garbage trucks hauling the country's daily waste, it would reach halfway to the moon. That's about 119,427 miles if you're counting.
And there's the moral obligation. Decades ago, most officials failed to understand the environmental disasters landfills create. Right here in Kingston, a former town landfill borders the campus. The site has since been cleaned up using Superfund money but the environmental impacts were severe.
That past mistake and others have cost this generation untold millions, and more likely billions, in clean up and remediation costs. The mistakes also cost clean drinking water, pristine forests and scenic vistas. Is this the way we want to leave the planet for future generation? The answer is clearly a resounding no.
Saving the university money is as simple as putting a piece of paper in a green recycling bin or rinsing out that soda can and dropping it into a blue bin. The act takes seconds and saves money and the environment.
The university recycled just 12 percent of its waste last fiscal year according to the university's Solid Waste and Recycling Office. That's a dismal figure and the university could do better if students and faculty pitched in.
There are thousands of recycling bins spread throughout campus. Every resident living in a residence hall receives not one, but two bins. Offices already have them and giant, 95-gallon bins are scattered about campus. The bins are almost as ubiquitous as the trash itself.
But recycling is not limited to properly sorting waste. Why buy a bottle of water when a refillable container serves the same purpose and saves money and plastic? Why not reuse the backside of that first draft of a report to take notes rather than busting out a brand new sheet of paper. Have a notebook that's half full? Don't toss it, use the other half. It's estimated that paper takes up more than half the space in landfills.
And recycling doesn't stop at the university's front entrance. Trash is rapidly becoming a local, state and global issue. Rhode Island officials estimate the state's central landfill in Johnston will run out of room by 2011 or even sooner. Thousands of miles away, Olympic officials have expressed concern about the pollution in Beijing ahead of the 2008 Olympics.
The university's recycling Web site lists some horrifying figures. For example, if you were to line up bumper to bumper, a string of garbage trucks hauling the country's daily waste, it would reach halfway to the moon. That's about 119,427 miles if you're counting.
And there's the moral obligation. Decades ago, most officials failed to understand the environmental disasters landfills create. Right here in Kingston, a former town landfill borders the campus. The site has since been cleaned up using Superfund money but the environmental impacts were severe.
That past mistake and others have cost this generation untold millions, and more likely billions, in clean up and remediation costs. The mistakes also cost clean drinking water, pristine forests and scenic vistas. Is this the way we want to leave the planet for future generation? The answer is clearly a resounding no.
