Recycling: Green Living

April, 2009

Here are Union's Recyclemania Rankings:

•    130th out of 192 schools in total recycled lbs per. person.
•    55th out of 202 in recycled paper per person.
•    90th out of 202 in recycled cardboard per person.
•    92nd out of 209 in recycled bottles and cans

To learn the details, click here.

To see all results, visit Recyclemania! and click on "NCR/results/competition underway"
 

January, 2008:

Union College has accepted the challenge of competing in the national recycling competition called RECYCLEMANIA. The goals are to reduce solid waste and to increase recycling on college campuses nationwide.  Recyclemania originated in 2001 as a challenge between Miami University and Ohio University.  Since then Recyclemania has expanded to include 490 colleges and universities.

The weekly reporting will allow each school to view their status of the competition and may be viewed on www.recyclemania.com .  Categories of interest are: largest amount of recyclables per capita, largest amount of total recyclables, least amount of trash per capita, and highest recycling rate.   

Recycling, reducing consumption and reusing resources are the best way to reduce our demand for new resources. U Sustain is working to decrease the demand for new resources, while recycling and reusing as much as possible.


Recycling in Brief
To find out how to recycle in your building, visit the recycling education page.

Union College recycles aluminum, plastic, glass, paper, batteries, cardboard, food scraps and reuseable items.

Every year, container recycling at Union helps to collect more than 150,000 containers and several tons of aluminum, plastic and glass. In addition, more than 40 tons of paper alone are recycled every year.


Recycling Materials
Over the last several years, Union College has embarked on several major recycling initiatives:

  • Facilities Services assumed responsibility of the former student-run recycling program, U Recycle. Since that time, recycling of aluminum, plastic, glass and paper has spread to every campus building and major walkways.
  • The College currently recycles more than 60 tons of materials per year, and recycling rates are constantly improving.
  • Facilities Services teamed up with Residential Life and the campus community to collect donated items from student rooms at the end of 2007.

Paper Circulation
Union College recently worked with vendors to reduce the price of recycled paper (30 percent post consumer fibers). Recycled paper is now very competitive with non-recycled paper and is available for purchase by all departments. This paper has been successfully tested with the new copiers on campus, without any problems.

New copiers on campus are being enabled with .pdf scanning and e-mail capabilities to help decrease interdepartmental faxing and unnecessary faxing. These printers can also easily make double sided copies to help reduce the number of pages used.


Donating Useable Materials
Union College began a huge recycling initiative to recycle materials students no longer need after graduation. Truckloads of materials have been donated to the community, including clothing, electronics, and furniture. Residential Life works with the entire Facilities staff to organize the pick-up, bringing goods from the residence halls to the community. To get more information about this year's pickup, ask your RA.