By Holli Smith, Architecture

        When guests began to visit Washington State University to tour the composting and recycling centers, the campus soon realized that its recycling procedures were serving as a model for other communities.  With a student body eager to help the environment, the campus has been impressively well equipped with facilities, equipment, trucks, and containers to handle all of the material the students and staff pitch in.
        Giving all of its approximate 1,060 employees a hand in the process, WSU’s Dining Services boasts having the highest percentage of recycled waste on campus.  The recycling program began as a result of Governor Booth Gardener’s 1990 insistence on a fifty percent reduction of the state’s waste levels.  Consequentially, small initial efforts reflected encouraging results.  The savings started to add up when less money was spent on transportation costs, dumping fees, and labor.  As recycling efforts escalated, the total percentage of recycled material jumped from 55 to 85%. These substantial savings prompted WSU to refine its procedures and adapt new ones.  Currently, thousands of dollars are being saved each month. In addition, income is actually generated from the recycling of aluminum and glass.
        Receptacles are available for students to sort their waste when they are through with their meals.  Items which are regularly recycled by the dining centers include tin cans, assorted aluminum, glass, plastic, cardboard, paper, milk cartons and food scraps.  Strict guidelines are outlined for dining center employees to make sure that all items arrive at their destination prepared for the recycling process.
        A Hobart waste pulper reduces the volume of food scraps, milk cartons and other paper products from the dining center by as much as 80 percent.  The resulting pulp is transformed into compost that consists of macro and micronutrients, and can enrich the quality of any soil.  The compost is then combined with manure at a university research site and then used by the agriculture programs.  This department studies the positive effects of the compost on crops and other vegetation.
        The WSU campus as a whole saved $40,000 in 1997 by recycling.  That figure is impressive, but far from ideal.  "Even though we recycled one-third of our waste, 60 percent of what goes to the landfill is still paper and that is about 98 percent recyclable or compostable...Thirty-three percent of the waste was recycled, but 2,420 tons still went to the landfill" states Wayne Gash, WSU Recycling Manager (September 23,1997 Daily Evergreen article by J. Fickett).
        WSU's dining services helps in preventing materials from ending up as waste, while maintaining a full-cycle program.  At the beginning of each school year, each student with a dining hall account receives a free reusable plastic mug.  The student then receives a discount on the beverage purchase as an incentive when using the refillable mug.  This greatly assists in reducing the amount of styrofoam and paper, which would end up in the landfill.
        Students and faculty in other locations do their part to reduce waste, also.  All buildings on campus have at least one area to sort and deposit paper, newsprint, bottles and cans. It has been discovered that the average WSU employee recycles seven ounces of material per day.
 
Indicators, Strategies and Benefits

         The indicators (I’s in bold and underlined) measure progress towards achieving sustainable recycling systems.  The strategies (S’s in bold) are recommended actions to improve each indicator.  The I’s and the S’s are followed by a discussion of societal, economic, and environmental benefits.

I.1. Reduce the amounts of food and material waste carelessly tossed into the trash by dining center employees and student diners as well as throughout the campus.
S.1.a. Educate students on the importance of recycling and the impact they can provide in the overall reduction of waste.
S.1.b. Provide easily accessible deposit sites for diners, students, staff and faculty to separate recyclable scraps and materials.
        As outlined above, recycling can be a useful indicator that could be used throughout the nation-measuring the amount of paper, food and its related waste that are recycled and not carelessly tossed into the trash resulting from campus dining center patrons, faculty, and office staff.  One strategy that could be used to reduce this amount of unnecessary waste is to educate students and staff on the importance of recycling, and the impact they can provide in the overall reduction of waste.  Another helpful strategy is to provide easily accessible deposit sites for campus members to separate their recyclables.  The benefits include reduced waste in landfills, more nutrient-rich soil, and substantial monetary savings to the university, its dining centers and students.
        Our future civilization depends on returning our earth to a healthy and balanced state.  Sustainability, applied to the earth’s environment and more specifically WSU campus, can only be achieved through the willingness of all residents to become educated on the topic and also to participate in the recycling process.  The movement toward achieving this state relies most heavily on a cooperative population, willing to follow through with some basic critical concepts.  Each individual must start at a grassroots level, beginning by following a personal interpretation of these basic strategies:
 
1.  Insist on purchasing and using only materials which can be "taken back" by the earth.

2.  Promote the design and development of products which cause no interference with human, animal, and vegetative life and whose physical components contain no damaging chemicals.

3. Promote concepts of sustainability in all majors of the university.

4. Become involved in city planning meetings and encourage more community members to participate.