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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

IU lags behind in recycling competition

IU’s conservation numbers leave the University in the lower ranks of the RecycleMania tournament as it approaches the end of its final week.

RecycleMania marks the efforts of students and conservation programs at competing universities in the United States and Canada, according to ?recyclemaniacs.org/about.

Steve Akers, Residential Programs and Services associate director for environmental operations, said the numbers reported on the website are only through week five and will be updated in the upcoming weeks.

In the Grand Champion competition, IU Bloomington currently sits No. 197 out of 222 competing schools, according to ?recyclemaniacs.org.

The University is in last place among competing schools in the Big Ten, and seventh out of the eight competing schools in the state of Indiana, according to the website.

IU’s current recycling rate is 13.757 percent, according to the website, trailing behind rival Purdue’s rate of 41.81 percent.

Purdue ranked No. 62 in the overall competition, according to the website.

Akers said Purdue has a more developed conservation program, but that does not justify our numbers.

“Purdue’s kicking our butts,” he said.

He said on average, the University is composting between 2,100 and 2,950 pounds of organic food waste per week.

IU is recycling between 30,000 and 33,000 pounds per week, Akers said.

This means IU is performing in a 14 percent diversion rate, “which is not great,” Akers said.

Mimi Zakem, intern at the IU Office of Sustainability, said students, staff, faculty and administrators should be taking an active role in waste reduction on campus.

“We really need to kick it up a notch here in being conscious consumers and disposers of materials,” she said in an email.

Akers said there are plans to expand conservation on campus.

Only four locations compost currently, including the Restaurants at Woodland, Union Street Market, Edmondson Dining Room at Collins and the Indiana Memorial Union, Akers said.

However, Akers said there is potential to compost for all the dining halls across campus once a commercial operation is found to take the organic food waste instead of current methods..

IU Athletics and the IMU dining program will increase efforts to compost and recycle as well, he said, but there is more work to do.

“There’s potential in increasing our recycling and minimizing our waste,” Akers said. “And I really think that’s going to happen.”

The broader challenge is for students and staff on campus to pay attention to the system in place, Akers said.

Zakem said the numbers could turn around if students use the current recycling infrastructure correctly, while IU must provide “top down” practices by creating effective tools to facilitate the process of waste management.

Akers said it is their job as campus caretakers to educate students and make the system efficient.

He said IU’s waste stream includes many recyclable items, and promoting awareness of the recycling system may remedy that ?issue.

They are currently working on an updated standardized information sheet to explain how to recycle in a simple format for students, he said.

Zakem said she sees the difficulty in relaying the importance of conservation to students.

“Our planet has finite resources,” Zakem said. “Here at IU, where materials are abundant, it is difficult for us to visualize this scarcity, which is a reality for the global population.”

However, Zakem said she sees IU’s standing in RecycleMania as room for ?improvement.

“Waste is a shame, it is a lost opportunity,” she said. “There is a lot of potential here for us to turn an issue into an opportunity to be leaders and responsible ?citizens.”

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