UpDate - Vol. 12, No. 18, Page 1
February 4, 1993
Team effort critical part of campus recycling program

     For student Patricia Kennedy, a typical day includes one fairly
atypical activity-looking through trash cans.
     In fact, examining the contents of wastepaper cans and analyzing
stacks of statistics are only two responsibilities of the junior political
science major and member of the Student Environmental Action Coalition
(SEAC).
     Kennedy is one of several student workers in the University's
one-year-old recycling program. A SEAC representative to the campus
Environmental Concerns Committee, Kennedy has been active about
environmental issues. She was hired to spend several hours a week working
for Roger Bowman, grounds supervisor and coordinator of the campus
recycling program. She also reports to the Office of the Vice President for
Student Life, which has provided support for her position.
     "My job is to foster communication, cooperation, participation and
education about the recycling program," Kennedy said.
     She explained that her primary approach is to talk to people-in office
buildings, classroom sites and work areas throughout campus-with the
purpose of making recycling occur at the grassroots level.
     Offering presentations for interested units is something she recently
started. Her first program was presented to employees in Laurel Hall, site
of Student Health Services.
     On a daily basis, Kennedy visits building and checks out how
day-to-day recycling activities are going. Using an extensive set of
records, she targets buildings on campus where the figures show that the
amount of recyclable material being generated from certain buildings does
not match the amounts expected.
     Bowman regularly receives figures from staff and student workers who
weigh the tonnage of recyclable material they pick up. This alerts Kennedy
about possible sites to visit. One instance involved a laboratory building
that had been averaging between 30 and 40 bags a month for most of the
year. When the amount dropped to 15 bags one month, it caught Kennedy's
attention.
     When she makes a visitation to assess such a problem, Kennedy said she
has discovered that several different factors may be the cause. These
include varying practices by building employees, custodial staff and the
campus grounds employees who pick up the bags of recycled material. There
also is the possibility that a miscalculation may have occurred in
computing the figures.
     All the people involved, said Kennedy, are acting as part of a team,
each with his or her their own responsibility. If one person falls out of
sync, it affects all the others and the entire program adversely.
     More education about the recycling program and a stricter sense of
accountability are two areas that Kennedy said need to be addressed.
     Increased involvement in recycling occurs when there is good
accessibility to the blue containers, she said. Momentum also picks up as
more co-workers become involved in the program.
     The University is only one small part of the overall state and
national recycling effort, Kennedy said. Since many people have been
disposing of unwanted material in the same fashion for more than 40 or 50
years, it's impossible to think they will be able to change lifelong habits
overnight.
     "But," she said, "people are being asked to be more conscious of the
decisions they make. Things do have to change. It requires a responsibility
on everyone's part to be a consumer and be aware of everything you are
doing. It's a consciousness that wasn't there before. But I don't think
it's acceptable that people know they should recycle and don't."
     Kennedy said much of her satisfaction comes from the positive support
she receives from campus employees as she visits offices. It's obvious, she
said, that many people are interested in what she's doing and go out of
their way to offer good suggestions.
     Some employees have told her they are impressed that the University
thinks enough of the program to actually hire her to improve grassroots
awareness and involvement in recycling.
     "My goal in doing this is to make the University, the campus
community, an ecologically sound environment, an ecologically sound place,"
Kennedy said.
                                        -Ed Okonowicz