As the fall 2024 semester continues, Ramapo is working toward new recycling initiatives. Recently the school held a campus-wide cleanup where students picked up litter and sorted it, filling three cans of recycling and garbage by the end.
However, this is not the only step. A new recycling pickup program has been implemented in the Village and the College Park Apartments (CPAs). Students may remember this program from last semester, but this time there is a smaller crew size for every pickup area and the locations of some refuse deposit areas were changed.
Students will go around the Village on Mondays at 7 p.m. and Fridays at 5 p.m. and the CPAs on Tuesdays at 12 p.m. The goal of these pickups is to lessen the amount of contamination in the recycling bins.
What students may not know is putting their recyclables in plastic bags, such as trash bags, is actually a contaminant and the service that picks up the college’s recycling will reject the entire bin because of it. This is the same for recyclables that have remnants of food, like pizza boxes with grease stains.
In an interview with The Ramapo News, Professor of Sustainability Ashwani Vasishth discussed this program and the truth behind recycling. He explained that he was in Washington D.C. lobbying for Clean Water Action when the phrase “reduce, reuse, recycle” was coined. However, since its creation, it seems people have forgotten about the importance of reducing waste and reusing materials when possible.
“Recycling was supposed to be the least, worst thing you could do,” he said. “Don’t assume that because you recycle, you’re doing what you need to do. This is the least you can do.”
With reusing in mind, Professor Vasishth has applied for a grant that could possibly help jumpstart a new student-run composting program. There would be one student worker with the composting machine and residents would take their compostable waste to the worker.
“We are wasting a usable resource. If you take organic waste and compost it, it then becomes fertilizer for soil and you can use it in your garden.” said Vasishth.
Last semester, while the recycling program was new, facilities did not see much of an improvement when it came to contamination in the recycling. However, with a new schedule and method of organizing waste, supervisor of facilities Nicole Jones is optimistic this semester will start a change.
Jones also urges students to keep in mind what they throw into the recycling. If they take their recycling to the recycling gondola rather than wait for pickup, they need to make sure they are not carrying it in a plastic bag. Otherwise, the entire gondola will be rejected.
“I understand the problem, you know, but it’s not that difficult to take a plastic bag to recycling, empty the recyclables and put the plastic bag into trash,” Vasishth mentioned.
For more explicit information about what can and cannot be recycled, as well as recycling resources, you can visit the Ramapo Green website. Together as a united campus, we can lessen waste at Ramapo.
pbortner@ramapo.edu
Featured photo courtesy of Terence-Ong, Wikimedia
