Recylcing On Georgia Tech

Scott Zadig

The recycling program implemented by Georgia Tech in order to make the campus a “greener” one has been very successful over the past decade. There have been campus wide efforts to create a recycling program that would exceed those of other college campuses across the United States. Just recently, the Georgia Tech Office of Solid Waste and Recycling received the National Recycling Coalition's Outstanding College or University Program award. This award was a great success for Georgia Tech’s program and they continue to hold the best record for university recycling programs across the nation.

Despite the national recognition in which Georgia Tech received for their successful program, I believe that as one of their students they could do an even better job. In 1997, Tech implemented their first recycling program specifically for the residential and housing facilities that reached approximately 60% of all facilities. Then a year later after the program was a huge success, the program expanded to every student on campus. With the program’s expansion, each suite and room on campus contained a blue recycling container to encourage residents to recycle. With this new system in place comes another problem: where do students take their overflowing recycle containers when they need to be emptied? After many weeks of not being able to easily find a place to dispose my recycled goods, I have sadly had to throw out recyclable goods in the dumpster. There is so much potential for increasing the amount of recycling on Georgia Tech’s campus, but the convenience for students to recycle is not available.

I did some research on a Georgia Tech's website concerning the recycling program and found that there are several sites campus where students can recycle used goods. The problem is these sites are not all convenient for students in dorms that are further away from the recycling sites. If there were more convenient recycling sites, I believe more students would be willing to make the extra effort to recycle. Unfortunately, not everyone is conscious or aware about the consequences of not recycling on the environment. If it is difficult to even recycle on campus, then it is only going to deter the cause. Students could increase the amount recycling of used goods if there were more convenient options available to the students.