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Last year, the University of Arkansas recycling department
saved over 500 tons of trash from area landfills. Instead
of clogging up landfills and polluting the environment, the
trash was shipped off to a northwest Arkansas recycling center
to be processed and reused. But one university employee said
we could do better with additional funding.
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picture to enlarge.
(COURTESY)
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UA recycling collects used paper, aluminum, and cardboard
products in bins around campus. According to Gary Enzor, who
heads up the university's recycling project, there are over
100 locations on campus where paper, aluminum, or cardboard
can be dropped off.
Enzor said the ability to recycle plastic on campus becomes
more important as Coca-Cola (which the UA holds a vending
contract with) continues to switch from glass and aluminum
to plastic containers.
"The
amount of aluminum we recycle has gone down almost six tons
in the last four years as Coke changes over from aluminum
to plastic," Enzor said.
Enzor believes the UA could be recycling both glass and plastics
if he were given the $20,000 dollars necessary to buy the
equipment, one more worker and space to put them in.
"We
collect three types of paper," Enzor said, "a pre-consumer
mix which comes to us directly from printing services and
the UA press, then the white and mixed papers which we pickup
from the bins in buildings around campus."
After the paper is gathered by recycling trucks, it is brought
to the recycling department, located in a small building in
the southwest corner of campus hidden behind the University
of Arkansas press. The paper is then sorted and bailed (compressed
into tight cubes that can more easily be moved and stored).
"We
have to make sure that there's no color or glossy paper mixed
in with the white," Enzor said. "The center that we ship the
paper off to can't use the white paper if it has been contaminated
by other colors."
Making sure that the white paper is usable by the recycling
center is important to Enzor because the UA is paid more than
$130 by the center for every ton of white paper they produce.
The mixed, low-grade paper brings in only $17 a ton, Enzor
said.
"We
made around $15,000 off of our recycled products last year,"
Enzor said. "Plus we saved another $15,000 by not having to
pay someone to haul them off to a landfill."
This is the tenth year of the UA's recycling project. Enzor,
a retired air-force pilot who began working at the UA in 1989,
has headed-up the project since its inception.
"We
started out as part of the custodial department. As we grew,
we branched off from custodial and began operating on our
own in 1995," Enzor asserted.
The recycling department, which now employs eight workers,
has grown considerably in 10 years.
"We
hope to eventually expand our operations to include glass
and plastics," Enzor said. "The main problem with doing so
right now is space. There's no room in our current location
for the extra equipment and storage area needed for plastics
and glass."
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