I find myself at the end of our little recycling experiment this week and in fact we just finished our presentation to the class about the project.  In the process of reviewing our results and preparing that presentation we realized a number of things.  Most importantly we realized that the results we got weren’t very valid.  We found alot of problems with our methods, namely that no one had been monitoring at the same time (morning could range from 7 am to 10 am) and that some of us had been monitoring different bins in the same general location than others.  Honestly I don’t know what to draw from the monitoring aspect of the project.  It’s hard to draw any solid conclusions on such limited data. I think before we can move forward with any revamping of recycling on campus we need to redo this monitoring project with more standardized methods and include a lot more bins.  Then we might be able to get an idea of where recycling is happening, what the needs are, etc.  It’s frustrating to go through a week of monitoring and realize that we don’t have any solid results, but still we learned a lot from the project, especially through the mapping.  It’s a good starting place if nothing else.  Finally, it taught me how difficult the process of becoming more environmentally friendly can be.  It’s not as simple as one would think, as w ehave seen through this project.  Recycling on campus still has a long way to go, but this project was at least a start.

I thought the presentation on Thursday went really well! Everyone really came together and did their part.  We all had something important to contribute and I thought the meetings and sessions worked out nicely.  I think we were a good team.  It felt really good to feel like we accomplished something that might actually be of some significance, yanno?  It’s certainly not everyday in college that I walk away from a project feeling this good about something I had spent my time doing for the past couple months.  I learned a lot about recycling, the recycling situation on campus, and what it means in relation to sustainability.  This process even taught me a lot about my own habits.  I thought I was a lot more “green” than I really am.  Well, the first step is awareness, so…at least I’m off to a decent start.  I’m excited to talk about and implement what I learned on this recycling project, and what I learned listening to everyone else’s presentations.  I thought everyone did a really good job and really wanted to impress Fisher.  This is project I won’t soon forget.

Now that our semester is coming to an end, so is our part of the recycling project. I think we have all worked together really well in getting this project started. Although we didn’t finish it in its entirety, I think we got a lot accomplished. We made maps of recycling bins in the major buildings, and monitored them. In my opinion, I think the monitoring process should have been more standardized. Since we weren’t sure when the recycling was being picked up by the janitors, it could have affected our results. Also, the times we went could have skewed the results as well. We spoke about this in our group meeting. Some of us considered morning monitoring to be at 7:30 am, while others checked at 11 am for morning. It should have been more standardized for better results. Besides that, I think this was a good project. It made us realize that bins should be more strategically placed around campus. Also, when I was monitoring bins I saw a lot of wrong items in the bins. For example, there would be paper in the plastic bins. Although it seems simple enough not to put paper in a plastic bin, maybe we should better inform campus about why it is important to make sure to put your recyclables in the correct bin. This project was very informative for me.

Hey guys! Jon here. Sorry this update is coming so late but I’ve been having technical difficulties, I had another nice little video planned for you all, but for some reason, technology is just not agreeing with me. Anywho, this past week we completed the monitoring phase of our project! Very exciting! Really there wasn’t much to it other then going up to a select few recycling/trash bins around campus and recording how full the were. What we’re really trying to figure out, is how much recycling is actually used on campus rather then people just throwing everything in the garbage (which, as I am told, some people actually do! crazy, right?). Anyway, we kept close tabs on these bins for the last week, and now comes the fun part, making sense of all the data! So stay tuned!

This week has been a quiet week for the recycling project as we’re currently between the mapping aspect and the monitoring aspect. Still I can’t seem to get away from the concept of recycling on campus. This morning I went to take my recycling out of my house (298 Meeting) and couldn’t seem to find the recycling bins. Turns out they’d migrated again to the back of the house. After a bit of frustration I finally found them. But I could have easily just given up and tossed my large bag of cans and bottles in the trash. The experience made me realize that other people might have similar frustrations. Maybe the lack of recycling is not out of apathy, but instead out of a lack of resources. I have not seen the full results of the mapping aspect, but I know some of the buildings I mapped had virtually no recycling bins. It was strange to go from the honors center, which had four bins on the tiny first floor placed within a few steps of each other, to buildings like the Johnson Center which had virtually no bins. Personally, I think the mapping aspect of this project might in fact be the most beneficial. It seems to me that the problem is poor allocation of bins. We need to redistribute the bins to locations where they’re needed, perhaps even add more. Certainly the problem is not consistent, as buildings like the Honors Center and 6 Green Way seem to have an overkill of recycling bins. Still I’m starting to feel like the root of the problem is in distribution of bins.

The only other problem I’ve gathered is the lack of labeling on bins. Quite a few bins I saw when mapping were not labeled, but didn’t appear to be catch-all bins either. This was extremely frustrating when I was trying to map the bin. However I cannot imagine how much more frustrating it would be to some who’s trying to recycle. It reminds me again of the bin
outside my house. While one is labeled paper only, the other merely reads “_______ only”. Am I supposed to be able to fill in the blank? I didn’t know, so I just ended up dumping both my plastic and aluminum recycling in the bin as there appeared to be no other option. Some people however might have just gone and thrown out things for fear of recycling ‘wrong’. Clearly this lack of communication is the other major problem. I’ll be interested to see the results of the actual monitoring in order to determine if there are actually any other problems. The good news is we’re getting good information that will hopefully help us revamp recycling on campus to make it more effective.

This video is an update and an example of the work the Recycling group is doing on campus. Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhOy3UA0p0w&feature=player_embedded#!

 

Today I mapped the recycling bins in the buildings I chose. It took me a while to get motivated, but once I did I realized how simple it was going to be.

I started in Student Health Services and discovered how few there were. The front desk had a recycling bin for paper and also two in the back by their break room. There weren’t any in the student waiting area, which I found surprising. I thought there would be more in general, but I guess most of the waste they produce is medical. I then moved on to the Sotille House, and they only had two recycling bins- one in the kitchen and one on the 2nd floor (it is a 4 story building). Next was Randolph Hall; when you walk in on the first floor, there was a set of the 3 compartment bins. The second floor had none. The third floor had a few, including another set of the 3 compartment bins by the elevator. There were a lot by the copy machine, and also an ink cartridge recycling bin. The building at 7 College Way had 4 bins and 19 St. Philip Street had 3 bins, all located on the 1st floor for a 3 story building.

Mapping the recycling bins made me realize how few each building had. I expected more in the offices because a lot of the waste is paper, which can be recycled. The bins were all relatively empty, maybe because recycling had been picked up, or maybe they aren’t being used due to inconvenient locations. It would be ideal if there were more recycling bins than trash cans.