The Collegian

Issue date: 4/17/08 Section: Focus

Students around campus have taken recycling into their own hands due to the administration's position that hiring a service to pick up recyclables is too costly.

Vice President of Administration Rich Péwé said the cost of hiring a local service to pick up recyclables is not in the college's budget.

Students in Alpha Psi Omega, the theatre honorary, take recyclables to the local recycling center when the bins they monitor become full.



Lighting designer and production manager Michael Beyer said he started a small recycling program in the Sage Center for the Arts after a large number of bottles piled up in the tech booth.

"I had 3 or 4 big plastic bags full," Beyer said.

He asked maintenance about recycling on campus and said they told him they could provide bins for him, but that was it.

"They said if they were to pick them up, they would just throw them away," he said. "I wasn't asking just so they could be trashed."

Students in Alpha Psi Omega then took over recycling in Sage.

Junior Betsy Stone said she and senior Maria Cantin help Beyer take recyclables to the recycling center every few weeks.

"They fill up pretty quickly," Beyer said. "People are using them."

Beyer set up a bin for glass and plastic in the Sage lobby and one for paper next to a photocopier.

Stone, who is from New York, said she recycles at home and believes the college's conservative nature tends to make it a little less environmentally friendly.

But she does credit the administration for working on conserving food in the dining hall and installing more efficient lighting in the Grewcock Student Union.

Associate Professor of Spanish Carmen Wyatt-Hayes said she would like to see a campus-wide recycling program.

"It would be wonderful," she said. "It's environmentally an important and responsible thing to do."

Wyatt-Hayes said we have an obligation to take care of the earth as it is God's gift to us, regardless of whether it is cost effective to do so.

Associate Professor of Economics Ivan Pongracic said he thinks most recycling programs are highly subsidized by city governments and therefore not very cost effective.

"People wouldn't have to be forced to recycle if it was cost effective," he said. "The fact that city governments are pushing it means it's not the most sensible policy."

But even though the college cannot afford to support a recycling program, Péwé encourages students to recycle if it is important to them.

"If students have the initiative, they should do that," he said. "I have no problem with anyone recycling as long as they do it right and maintain their commitment," adding that if recyclables are not taken care of in a timely manner, overflowing bins can become fire hazards.

The McIntyre Residence recycling program freshman Mika Kobs and three other freshmen started last semester ended abruptly, after an article featuring them printed in The Collegian in November.

"I was told it was attracting bugs and overflowing," Kobs said, but she never saw bugs in the recyclables when she would sort through them. She added that the recyclables collected included mostly paper products and water bottles.

Dean of Women Diane Philipp told Kobs she could put a recycling bin outside the dorm building.

"I feel like in the Michigan winter this would be impossible to do," Kobs said.

She plans on finding a way to make recycling on campus easier.

"It shouldn't be this big of a deal," she said.

Kobs said Teri Martin, McIntyre house director, still has a bin for recyclables that she turns in for dorm fund money.

Kobs has not given up, she said, and she and her roommate Sarah Ferens still recycle whatever they use personally. Kobs said she hopes to create a campus recycling program before she graduates.

Nikki Ryan, a junior at nearby Spring Arbor University, said her school does not have an organized recycling program either.

Students in her dorm collect recyclables and take them to a local grocery store voluntarily.

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