In part one of this post, I talked about the difference between treatment and recovery. Treatments are processes applied to a material or combination of materials. Recovery is the type, quality and quantity of commodities that are recovered from applying that process. That is an important distinction, especially when you hear about various treatments for managing organics.
Recycling used to be simple. It was a transaction between someone who had a waste and someone who wanted that waste to manufacture a new product. Maybe there was a collector in between, but it was generally a pretty simple transaction.
In my experience one of the most successful tools to achieving your goals is a methodology called parallel access.
Recycling is a manufacturing process. The recyclable materials we collect are commodities and like any commodities there are ebbs and flows in supply and demand.
A recycling program is made up of many different pieces. As you grow your program, one of the biggest challenges is making sure those pieces fit together into an effective system.
It’s that time of year. The ball fields are ready. The players are ready. Is your recycling program?
Whether you have dormitories, suites, houses, on-campus apartments, or even a yurt (all of which for simplicity’s sake I will collectively refer to as residence halls), those residence halls are home for any resident students that you have on campus for the 8+ months per year that they live on campus. That means that at some point you are going to need to do recycling education in the residence halls. The question is who delivers the message? Who prepares it?
There are two main components to residence hall recycling education: information (the what, when and where) and promotions (the why). I have written other posts about the informational facet, including location, images, and even using things like QR codes to convey information. And I have written previously about the why.
Rather than just looking for outside funding sources, have you looked to see whether there are ways to enhance the revenues that you receive for your recyclables to get you the extra funding that you need? What items on your wish list could you fund if you took advantage of those opportunities?
For part 3 of this “Know Your Campus” series, I am going to focus on location. Some folks in real estate are fond of suggesting that location is everything. I wouldn’t go that far, but location can have a profound impact on how you manage your recycling and sustainability programs. In terms of location, I would suggest there are 3 main categories of schools: Urban campuses, Semi-urban/suburban campuses, Rural campuses
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