Are you throwing that away?

Do you recycle? How about compost? Grand Valley State University does. In fact, they ask their students to separate their trash into three separate piles before anything is taken to the landfill. Would you be willing to do the same? It’s a request the school’s Environmental Coalition wanted to test.
 

The student group theorized that students are not taking the proper steps to minimize their waste stream.  So they conducted a waste audit -- a physical analysis of the contents of several dumpsters on campus -- to see exactly what students were throwing away.  
 

“We had our suspicions that the composting and recycling facilities offered to students were being grossly underused and misused,” explains GVSU Student Environmental Coalition member Josh Lycka.
 

During the event held on February 20, two dumpsters were emptied out and sorted by volunteers clad in protective clothing.  
 

“After sorting through their contents, we found that an overwhelming majority of waste was in fact misplaced,” confesses Lycka. “The fact that we have invested in sustainable waste management is swell, but the student body needs to make use of it and show that they understand and care about using our resources efficiently.”
 

 According to GVSU Campus Sustainability Manager Bart Bartels, 80 percent of the garbage found in the dumpster could have been diverted into either a recycling or a composting bin. Currently, the school has a 42 percent diversion rate, meaning 42 percent of trash is composted or recycled rather than being sent to a landfill. That is more than double what it was less than a decade ago. 
 

The waste audit was billed as a part of the GVSU’s involvement in Recyclemania, a national intercollegiate competition to promote waste reduction on college campuses.
 

Want to help put the good back in do-gooder? Here’s how:
 

• Join the facebook group 

• LIKE Grand Valley State University on facebook

• Learn more about recycling, composting and other environmental measures you can take 
 

Source: Josh Lycka, Grand Valley State University Environmental Coalition; Scott Kaplan, West Michigan Environmental Action Council
Writer: Jennifer Wilson, Do Good Editor