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Laxson over the Years

A Fire Burns through It

aybe it starts with a warm day, a soda, and a nearby container marked "Aluminum Only." Next come stacks of newspapers. Soon, you're tossing carrot peelings and coffee grounds into the garden instead of the garbage can. Before long, you have separate containers in the garage for glass, paper, aluminum, and plastic. And then you're scrutinizing all purchases, looking for less packaging and more recycled content.

This recycling thing can get to be a habit-even for an institution. On the Chico State campus, increased resource conservation awareness has led to expansion of recycling services, more purchases of recycled goods, an increase in composted waste, and ongoing efforts to educate the campus and the community about the importance of recycling.

"I think recycling is revolutionary. When have we ever been concerned with post-consumption? Almost all of human history has been progress in the expansion of consumption, not in post-consumption. Now, by focusing on what happens after consumption, we really get a better perspective on consumption itself and all of our impact on the environment," said Mark Stemen, adviser to Chico State's student interns involved with environmental education projects.

Stemen explained that the average American produces 1,500 pounds of garbage per year; the average Californian, 2,500 pounds. The three largest items in the waste stream are paper, construction and demolition debris, and organics such as food and landscaping waste. For years, this waste has been carted off to landfills. But now there is less room in the existing landfills and fewer places to put new landfills. In response to increasing amounts of waste, the California Integrated Waste Management Act of 1989 required a 25 percent diversion of waste from landfills by 1995 and a 50 percent diversion by 2000.

For a long time, people concerned with waste on campus have participated in recycling programs. Louisa Garza, gardening specialist for University Housing and Food Service, coordinates the recycling program for the residence halls and has long been an environmental and recycling advocate. Over the last several years, the halls have reduced the amount of waste going to the local landfill by recycling cardboard, aluminum, glass, plastic, paper, and phone books. Grass clippings are sent to the University Farm for composting. During the 1998 spring semester, over a ton of aluminum, glass, and plastic was recycled from the halls.

The residence halls' manual, signs in the halls, and Garza's column, "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle," in the residence halls' newsletter all encourage students to recycle. During the 1997 holiday season, Garza started offering suggestions for alternative Christmas decorations. "You don't need to cut down trees to decorate your room," advised Garza. She recommended lights, festive objects, and live trees students could take with them when they moved. Garza got results right away: the halls had fewer cut Christmas trees than in previous years.

As adviser to the Associated Students Environmental Affairs Council, Garza has worked with a variety of students interested in the environment. There has been frustration among students who felt there wasn't enough environmental change happening on campus. "Then, a couple of years ago, we got some incredible students. It made me realize the environmental movement is alive and well and definitely kicking," said Garza. "I was particularly impressed with the women who got the ball rolling. They did not give up." One of these women was Barbara Kopicki, who has gone on to become the recycling program coordinator for the Associated Students Chico Recycling Program (ASCRP).

"Reduce, reuse, recycle" is more than a slogan for Kopicki. Growing up in a household where glass and paper were recycled and green waste was composted in the backyard, Kopicki became an early champion for environmental awareness. Kopicki's office today has stacks of containers, paper, and cardboard that she uses and re-uses. She never buys paper-her staff brings her what they find from recycling bins.

Kopicki's unwavering commitment to reducing the amount of waste that enters landfill and to conserving resources helped spark the expansion of the ASCRP. In spring 1998, students voted for a $10-per-semester student-fee increase to help fund a variety of AS. projects. One third of the increase will go to ASCRP. The recycling program began in 1996 with paper pick-up at twenty-two campus locations, using containers donated by the California Waste Management Board. By the end of the 1998 spring semester, there were about one hundred campus locations. ASCRP picks up paper, beverage containers, and compost. Over 100 tons of waste were recycled in 1997-1998.

With the new funding, Kopicki expects the program expansion to include more locations, more outside containers for cans and bottles, a place for campus and community members to drop off recycling, and increased staffing to provide these services. The budget has already more than tripled, from $30,000 to $98,000, and can be expected to rise further with the increase in requests for recycling services from the campus community.

The can and bottle recycling program is newer than the paper recycling program. AS. recycles glass, plastic, aluminum, and tin containers. Part of the educational efforts have focused on letting people know what can and cannot be recycled. Occasionally, people toss coffee cups into the glass and bottle containers or the paper recycling containers. Coffee cups can't be recycled because they are wax-coated and are contaminated with food. If these are tossed in the paper containers and contaminate the contents, that paper can't be recycled.

To help collect some of the recyclable materials, the AS. funded the materials cost to develop Chico's eco-trike. The eco-trike, a large tricycle with the bin on back, designed and built by Oscar Shropshire, can haul about 500 pounds of compost or other recyclable materials. There are only two eco-trikes in the CSU system, one at Chico State and one at Humboldt State. "If you're going to have a recycling program, you've got to have a bike, or you're just spouting fumes the whole time," said Kopicki.

The AS. collects compost from the Garden Cafˇ, Whitney Dining Hall, Butte Culinary Academy, Primo Expresso Cart, and Primo Expresso Cafˇ. In 1997-1998, the composting program diverted 31,000 pounds of organic waste from the local landfill by collecting campus kitchen scraps. People working at the collection sites learned about composting by seeing what was collected and how it was used. The kitchen scraps were taken to the University Farm where they were composted and used for crops. Some of these crops made their way back to the campus kitchens. For example, the Butte Culinary Academy is one of the collection locations and uses seasonal food from the University Farm. As Kopicki said, "It closes up the loop."

Another way to conserve resources is to purchase products created with recycled materials. In the residence halls, furniture created from recycled plastics was purchased. Campuswide, 21 percent of the paper purchased during 1996-1997 had recycled content. Pattie Hanneman, director of Procurement Services, encourages departments to purchase products made of recycled materials. "Initially, it was a little hard to win our customers over because in the past recycled meant not so good," said Hanneman. Recycled paper was not acceptably white and was more expensive than new paper. This is changing now, with improved, less costly recycled products continually being developed.

In 1997, the entire campus recycled almost 240 tons of paper, including cardboard, shredded documents, office packing, white ledger, newspaper, and phone books. Almost thirteen tons of food compost, glass, aluminum, and plastic, and eleven tons of hazardous waste were recycled. The university sold surplus property with resale value.

With the increased attention to resource conservation by the campus, the next step was to find a way to share information. The Campus Conservation Committee was formed to "provide a practical and achievable way to expand campus recycling efforts through a partnership with campus staff, faculty, and students," according to the minutes of their February meeting. Don Sleeper, of Facilities Management and Services and chair of the committee, emphasized the group's intent: "Let's bring everybody together and make recycling work on this campus." One example of partnership is the recycling of aerosol cans. While there was a desire on the part of Facilities Management to recycle these, it was not possible to give them to ASCRP because of the dangerous propellant. Having learned about Facilities Management's focus on recycling, however, Jeff Mott, of Environmental Health and Safety, found a machine that crushes the aerosol can, extracts the propellant into a small container, and allows the can itself to be recycled. Not only is this a better solution environmentally, it costs less than sending the cans to a hazardous waste contractor.

Increasing resource conservation requires education of the campus and the wider community. Last spring, fourteen ASCRP interns developed recycling education projects. One of these projects is located behind the tennis courts under the old oak tree by the railroad tracks, where students Tracy Scalabrino and Elizabeth Grotenhuis are creating the compost education project. During a respite from the El Ni–o storms that delayed their project last spring, Scalabrino and Grotenhuis were busy setting out flowers in tires filled with compost enriched soil and organizing a display of compost bins. When completed, the area will boast a series of demonstration bins, a work table and benches for composting workshops, and a flower and herb garden.

Stemen may see recycling as revolutionary, but Scalabrino and Grotenhuis don't see themselves as revolutionaries, or even as activists, although they welcome the opportunity to teach people composting as a way to improve the world. Grotenhuis, who plans to be a teacher, said, "This project is a way to shape kids' ideas of how they should live in the environment and what kind of people they should be in the world. If you incorporate recycling and composting and have them be a little more eco-friendly when they're young, hopefully, it will continue to be with them when they're older." Both students also were drawn to the compost project as a way to build something from nothing. They had to put it all together, from the planning, to the successful $2,700 proposal submitted to the AS. Revenue Allocation Committee, site development, compost creation and monitoring, and workshop development. Scalabrino wanted a project that would be "permanent on campus." Someday, she plans to "come back and still see people working with it." Stemen expressed his faith in all the students he supervises and exclaimed, "They inspire me. They're going to save the world." After a moment of contemplation, he said, "They're going to do it."

Barbara Alderson, University Publications