Recycling Bin Improvements

I am working with the recycling group to improve and promote recycling at Occidental. My personal focus has been on surveying the recycling bins on campus to decide where we should add more bins and how to change the arrangement of current bins.

In walking through the dorms I noticed that there were actually a good number of recycling bins, albeit terribly labeled and often placed in poor locations. On almost all of the bins there was no labeling whatsoever, and on those that did it was mostly misleading. For example in Haines there is a bin that says "Aluminum Only" right next to a bin that says "Aluminum, Plastic and Glass." We now know that these bins are all for aluminum, plastic, and glass, thus these labeling issues confuse students and undoubtedly lead to lower recycling quantity. Hopefully by creating new, uniform signs this issue will be alleviated in that at least students will know what should be recycled where.

The other huge issue i have noticed is placement of bins. Often there are a few bins in the hallway of residence halls but none in the bathrooms, where there is only trash. This makes it so recycle bins are much closer than trash bins for most residents, and as a result a lot of trash is thrown in the recycling, contaminating it. Unfortunately, after talking with Bruce Steele, head of Facilities at Occidental, it is apparent that this situation will likely stay as it is. There are very strict fire codes set up by the city of Los Angeles that restrict the number and type of trash/recycling receptacles in hallways. Because of this it is often impossible to place recycling or trash where they would be used most effectively. Perhaps in response to this we could remove recycle bins that are far from trash bins, and instead put them next to the trash. This would hopefully decrease the contamination of the recycling. Ideally I would like to see Oxy implement a one-to-one ratio of trash to recycling, so that everywhere there is a trash there is a recycling bin next to it. However after hearing about the fire codes, this is unlikely to happen.

In other locations around campus there are few if any recycle bins. For example there is only a couple in all of Johnson and Fowler. This is outrageous especially considering that the most common items thrown away in classrooms are paper and bottles. We must increase the number of recycling bins in these locations.

Another possible improvement would be to purchase covers for all of the recycle bins that restrict the recycling to only bottles. So-Cal recycling takes only bottles so it makes sense to restrict the bins to fit only cans/bottles. Unfortunately this idea may be too difficult to implement because there are at least 4 types of recycling bins on campus, and finding tops for all of these would be tedious and costly.

In the long run I would like to see Occidental implement trash/recycling/composting-in-one containers. I have seen these at almost every other campus I have visited. They include three square bins connected to each other, effectively labeled trash, recycling, and compost. These bins, however, would require that 1) we have a recycling company that takes all types of recyclables together and 2) we have large scale composting. Both of these actions may be years down the line, but it is something to keep in the back of our minds.