Steve Akers, Residential Programs and Services associate director, is one man with one dream and a whole lot of trash.
That’s how Office of Sustainability No Waste Coordinator Bruna Oliveira describes Akers’ dedication to increasing IU’s waste diversion rate, which is the rate at which recyclable products are separated from items destined for the landfill.
Akers’ efforts come as IU begins its seventh year of participation in RecycleMania, a nationwide contest raising awareness of on-campus waste production and waste diversion education.
“The really cool thing about RecycleMania is that literally every piece of trash that you put into a trash can or a recycling bin tips the weight in favor of or against IU,” Oliveira said.
The competition compares the amount of trash and recycling collected each week for an eight week period to track the progress of collegiate recycling through time.
This years’ contest began Sunday and aims to promote the sorting and recycling of various glass, plastic, aluminum and even e-waste products.
Akers, who oversees all waste management for RPS, said he is always looking for ways to recycle more and waste less. He said he saw RecycleMania as a way to build awareness and report IU’s standings to the public.
“When I found the RecycleMania contest in 2010, it was purely about, ‘Here’s a contest you can participate in to build awareness of the importance of recycling and waste minimization,’ and so I immediately got involved in it,” Akers said.
The contest has grown from a small competition between Ohio University and Miami University in 2001 to include nearly 400 schools in last year’s contest. Akers said he hopes to promote friendly competition with other Big Ten and Indiana schools.
“IU is competitive in basketball,” Akers said. “IU is competitive in a lot of things. This would be a way, I thought, to be competitive in waste and recycling.”
With the help of Residence Hall Association Eco-Reps and Republic Services, Akers will submit per capita results determined through weekly recycling and trash weights.
So far, IU has not faired well against the competition. Akers said IU’s waste diversion rate generally is between 13 to 15 percent, while the average range is 20 percent.
Akers said occasionally his office performs waste audits to identify how much recyclable material is thrown away in landfill-destined trashcans.
“We’ve discovered in some cans where it’s just waste, it’s as much as 50 percent of it is actually recyclable material,” Akers said.
His goal for this year is to promote greater education of recyclable materials on campus and reach the 25 percent mark of waste diversion.
Last year’s winning school, Antioch University Seattle, had a diversion rate of 96 percent, which Akers said is hard to compare to a school like IU given the difference in size and student population.
The RecycleMania team will be working through the next eight weeks in residence halls and various locations on-campus to promote the event and teach students what products can and should be recycled.
In addition to tabling and giveaways, this week RHA eco reps will be handing out 100 recycling bins to students living in Briscoe Quad.
“The main goal is just to get people aware that it’s going on and get people motivated to contribute,” Oliveira said. “Not only doing that for the short period of time for RecycleMania, but just sort of having that carry over into everybody’s daily lives.”
Oliveira added that she hopes to draw students’ attention to the use of disposable coffee and tea cups and replace them with reusable containers.
Akers said the labeling of containers in residence halls and new composting programs in dining halls on campus should help with this year’s initiative.
However, both Akers and Oliveira agreed that in order for IU to rise in the RecycleMania ranks, it would take an effort from all students on campus to make a change.
“The powerful thing about RecycleMania is that every single person can contribute and every single person’s decision really makes an impact on our standing as a University and as a community,” Oliveira said. “It’s just a really powerful tool to contextualize your behaviors and how really small decisions can really make a huge difference.”
