Daniel Clausen

For the Review 

Recently, Linfield students have discovered a new luxury around campus: co-mingled recycling bins. In the past, students had to laboriously separate their recyclables into glass, office paper, newspaper, cardboard, greyboard, plastics and cans. Now all these items, except for glass, simply go into the green bins marked “recycling.”The sorting machinery allowing mixed collections has been used by Western Oregon Waste, the company that handles Linfield’s trash, for several years. Off campus, co-mingled recycling has been the norm for McMinnville residents and businesses for almost five years. Linfield’s switch was delayed by a problem with glass.“I didn’t want to go a step back,” Tim Stewart, manager of Custodial Services, said. “That is what this would have been if we went ahead with co-mingling and didn’t have a way to collect glass.” Linfield continued with separate bins for each category of recyclables until Riverside Recycling agreed to collect both glass bins and mixed bins.The change was coordinated by Javier Mendoza of Cleaning Services and all campus housing is now equipped with the new bins. Efforts are underway to get recycling stations into every staff and faculty building.“The amount of recycling will skyrocket,” Stewart said. Because students no longer have to think about where a recyclable needs to go, Stewart hopes they will be more likely to drop their soda bottle or soup can into a recycling bin, rather than sidestep the problem and abandon such containers to the garbage. Junior Hanna Bogen agreed. She said she is recycling more and pointed to an overflowing basket of recyclables in her apartment. Her sorority is starting to recycle in its chapter room as well. Terry Wymore, facilities office manager who handles the bills from Western Oregon Waste, said if recycling increases substantially it could even make for a drop in the college’s operating costs. For the last five academic years, Linfield has spent more than $100,000 annually on garbage removal services from Western Oregon Waste. Last year, the figure topped $120,000. This number is based on the estimated amount of trash collected from campus dumpsters each month. Collection of recycling, on the other hand, is free.According to www.linfield.edu/plant, the Environmental Protection Agency estimates 90 percent of trash produced in the U.S. is potentially recyclable, while only about a quarter of glass and plastic containers are recycled. With such sizable proportions affected, a significant rise in recycling and the correlating drop in trash output could have financial benefits.Stewart and Mendoza both warned that the new co-mingled bins should not be filled haphazardly. Students must still separate glass and all recyclables should be washed. Contamination is a major hurdle for efficient recycling. Unfortunately, only some plastics are currently recyclable. As rule of thumb, any container with a wider mouth than its base, such as a yogurt container, as well as lids, cannot be sorted by the McMinnville plant and must be considered trash.On campus, some sorted recycling is still in place. In non-residential buildings, such as Melrose Hall, office paper recycling stations have been preserved. Stewart said there was no reason to send a large amount of a pure product to be sorted.Mendoza said he and his workers do not sort the trash or recycling on campus at all, but leave that up to the recycling plant. This means any recyclable in the trash is headed irrevocably to the municipal dump.As an added bonus for students, Stewart said he recently became aware of a federal scholarship for those interested in recycling. Up to $1,000 may be available toward tuition for a student who works with the Linfield recycling program. If interested, contact Jessica Wade, the volunteer coordinator, at [email protected].