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Case kicks off new recycling program
Sarah Rizzo
Staff Reporter
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The Case Sierra Club and student Case Facilities Services launched a new student-initiated recycling program on campus at the Recycling Extravaganza in the Thwing Ballroom yesterday.
Students, faculty, and staff were invited to check out the new recycling program, learn more about the history of recycling at Case, snack on organic food, and participate in games and raffles from 3 to 8 p.m.
The extravaganza highlighted the year-long student effort to bring recycling to the university, led by Case’s Sierra Club and Sierra Club–RHA recycling representatives.
Sophomore biology major Remy Olson, who has played a significant role in the recycling initiative, also works for Case Facilities Services as a liaison between the students and facilities workers.
Olson said that she hoped to showcase that “there is a lot being done” for recycling at Case.
“Some people feel they have been lied to,” says Olson. “There are bins all over campus that say aluminum and plastic, but for the past four years, everything except paper products have been thrown out.”
The implementation of recycling on campus has involved a lot of coordination and communication between students, Housing, Facilities Services, and custodians.
Yesterday’s kick-off marked the beginning of a set of “stages” which will allow the “entire recycling program… [to] be ready for the freshmen,” Olson said.
“We only anticipate another one to two months to have the entire thing in place,” she said. “The negotiation of a contract with waste management has been a slow-going process.”
The extravaganza included 12 booths from a variety of environmental organizations from Northeast Ohio, including the Northeast Ohio Sierra Club, the Earth Day Coalition, the Cleveland Green Building Coalition, and the Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District.
Also, student groups such as the Case Sierra Club and the Sierra-RHA undergraduate recycling representatives set up booths.
Olson said that a major part of the extravaganza was aimed at recycling education.
Sophomore religion major and recycling representative Sunjay Mathur, who helped with the extravaganza, feels that “being a recycling rep is a meaningful way to recognize the large negative environmental impact that colleges make.” While “many of us have organized recycling at our homes and high schools,” he said, this has not been possible in the past to do at Case.
The extravaganza also featured a speaker series, including Diane Bickett, the assistant director of the Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District; Eugene Matthews, the Director of Facilities Services at Case; and Norman Robbins, the Case Sierra Club advisor and leader of the Case Center for the Environment.
The celebratory event continued into the evening with two Case DJs, Case in Point, the Case Jugglers, and Speakeasy.
Currently, there have been new recycling bins ordered to be placed in every dorm on campus within the next few months. The first-floor “recycling centers” will include one compartment for trash, one for containers (aluminum, plastic, and glass), and one for paper (excluding newspaper).
Freshman Rein Lambrecht, the Sherman House recycling rep, hopes to see in the future “recycling reps working harder to educate students and get them involved in other environmental projects.”
While Facilities Services and Case Sierra Club anticipate a contract for all recyclable material to be signed in the coming weeks, Case students can help out the environment and the community today.
Habitat for Humanity has provided bins to recycle aluminum in the residence halls through the “Aluminum Cans Build Habitat for Humanity Homes” program.
The proceeds from the collected aluminum in all the dorms’ first-floor bins go directly towards Habitat for Humanity homes.
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