Do you hear that? There is life on this campus again. The early arriving students are already here and on Thursday we will welcome the class of 2016. It will be so exciting to see the fresh new faces, and then also the old familiar faces of our sophomores, juniors, seniors, and favorite professors. We hope everyone had a fun-filled summer!
While the weather sure was gorgeous in Rochester, the University’s recycling office was not out on a summer haitis. If you’d like to get just a taste of the work we did, let’s talk about the new educational material that we were busy preparing in time for students to return. The very first order of business was our standard recycling poster. It is framed above recycling stations in high traffic areas of campus and in all the residential buildings. But one thing was clear, it needed a makeover, bad. The very talented recycling assistant, Melissa Kullman, did a great job transforming the poster while not losing any of the important content it contained. Then we turned it over to graphic designer, Jennelle Hart, to give it the finishing touches of a professional. The end result was two slightly different designs that we likes so much, we decide to evenly distribute both in our framed locations while adding a few new locations. You can view, download, and print them here.
While the posters are utilized by the entire campus community, we did some things especially for students. For the third year in a row, we posted a Recycling 101 inSTALLment in the nearly 1000 bathroom stalls of our residential buildings. In case you’ve missed the intended pun, this offers what we think is the perfect reading material for a place we all spend time. It takes time to get these all posted, but it’s worth it. Of all the things we do to educate the public and get the word out, this tool has received the most feedback as being effective.
Then, to reinforce the concepts and add a little bit of fun, door-hangers will be waiting on all dorm room doors when students arrive. The new look this year matches our new poster and this year there will also be a giveaway. That’s right; you could win something! All you have to do is “like” UR Sustainable on Facebook and on October 5th we will pick two lucky people to win an iPod Nano and a bicycle!
But wait, we’re not done. We also worked on a “special” project. It’s no secret that not all of our buildings are created equal on campus (Hello, have you seen the newly open O’Brien Hall? Wow!). Some areas pose more of a challenge for recycling. Hill Court happens to be one of these areas. Due to a lack of space, this is the only residential location on campus where Environmental Services staff goes above and beyond to empty the recycling bins out of student suites. As a result, the dedicated staff must also separate the paper and cardboard from the plastic, metal, and glass. Despite the added service, unfortunately our audits have observed that lots of recyclable material from this area ends up going in the trash. Not sure quite why this was happening, we sent out a survey to Hill Court residence and learned a lot. As a result, we added a brand new recycling trio to the entrance way of each building. We are also going to try a new type of container in Kendrick. It is actually two different “stackable” containers so we can collect the two streams seperately upfront. Each Kendrick suite will receive these bins with instructions on how to use them neatly attached with ribbons. We will then check back with our staff and survey the students in November to see how these are working. We are keeping our fingers crossed that the containers will work well!
Well, good luck with classes, everyone, and let’s make it a fabulously GREEN academic year.
Written by Amy Kadrie, Recycling Coordinator
