Recycling for free, paying for trash

With a price tag of $2 per bag, trash collection in Bloomington can be an expensive proposition for students. But Sanitation Director Shelby Walker knows a way people can halve the amount of trash they throw out.

“If you’re doing serious recycling, you might find you all of a sudden only have one bag to throw out, as opposed to two,” he said.

The Sanitation Department offers free recycling to city residents, and Walker believes recycling regularly can be both a way to reuse materials and save money.

“They kind of go hand in hand,” he said. “Some of it is economics, and some of it is that the residents really want to recycle.”

The city runs several other programs Walker said are intended to save residents money, such as free leaf collection starting Oct. 19 and appliance pickup for $4.

“I believe the economy has driven people to look at how they shop, look at what they can reuse,” Walker said. “People are not so quick to buy and say ‘I’ll just throw it away.’”

At the same time, sustainability efforts are becoming a part of campus life. Residential Programs and Services reported recycling about 14 tons of cardboard after move-in day.

The amount of trash coming from Bloomington has a direct effect on Indiana landfills. The city has a contract with Hoosier Disposal to pick up trash and recycling on a weekly schedule in Bloomington.

While some recycling from Bloomington makes its way to a sorting facility in Indianapolis, trash goes to a landfill in Terre Haute, Walker said.

Some materials, like glass bottles, are sorted in Bloomington.

“There has definitely been a concerted effort to reduce the amount of landfill,” said Ron Howard, Hoosier Disposal Area sales manager. “I can’t say it’s directly tied to the economy, but awareness has gone way up.”

It can be difficult for some residents to recycle, though. People who live in apartment buildings don’t always have recycling in their building.

“At home we recycle quite a bit,” senior Jeremy Grover said. “But here I end up throwing away a lot of things that could be recycled.”

But Howard said more and more apartment complexes are adding recycling programs each year, and Hoosier Disposal has added four or five buildings just this year.

Grover, who said he’s lived in apartment buildings without recycling programs for the last two years, said he’d like to see the city provide recycling to big buildings.

“There are so many of us dumping away so many things that could be reused,” he said. “This beautiful campus that we take for granted is not being sustained by its students, and that’s a shame.”