The feeling plagues many Brandeis students at some point: the transient sense of guilt that arises from discarding a recyclable item. Some excuse it because they are late to class and the trash can was closer than the recycling bin. Others use non-recyclable Java City coffee cups out of convenience. Still, others feel a sense of confusion about the program in general."I see problems with the system," Sean Patrick Hogan '07 said. "For example, I saw a member of the janitorial staff empty one of the bottle bins into the trash."

Responding to such student sentiments, the Students for Environmental Action (SEA) said they are trying to increase awareness of the school's recycling program. They place overriding emphasis on the need for student support.

"Brandeis does have an intricate recycling program," said Melinda Grodsky '06, head of recycling for SEA. "But it only works as long as students do their part."

Grodsky addressed the often heard complaint that custodians mix trash and recycling together when they gather the trash. She said this mostly occurs when the recycling bins are contaminated with non-recyclable products, but that some custodians do need further training.

Beckett Horowitz '05, the president of SEA, commented similarly. "Most of the custodians really want to help us. If the students do their part, things should go more smoothly. The custodians are not trying to thwart our efforts."



Aramark and the recycling issue

The decisions of the dining services company Aramark strongly impact the Brandeis recycling program. SEA is stressing the need to avoid to-go containers because of the sheer numbers used.

"I asked [Michael Newmark, operations manager of Dining Services] for specific statistics, and they were staggering," said Jacqueline Gordon '05, the SEA representative to Aramark. "Students use 1,600 to-go containers, 800 coffee cups and 4,000 utensils daily. That's pretty wasteful, in case it's not obvious," she said.

Richard Rubini, food services director at Usdan, confirmed these numbers.

Newmark offered further figures on the annual use of containers: 434,000 one-compartment containers, 162,740 three-compartment containers and approximately 8,525 small containers.

Brandeis switched recycling companies at the beginning of this school year. Barb Laverdiere, director of dining services, said Aramark recently discovered that its new recycling contractor, the Institutional Recycling Network, does not recycle polystyrene. Polystyrene is a cheap, hard form of plastic that the to-go containers used at Brandeis are made from.

Dennis Finn, a facilities worker who heads Brandeis' recycling program, explained that the material is chemically complicated to recycle, and that most recycling companies do not recycle it.

Laverdiere said that Aramark is researching alternatives, but that most other containers are more expensive. "That's not a cost we want to pass on to students," she said. She also said that Aramark is examining the investment costs of adding deeper plates and bowls. Students supported deeper dishes as a good substitute; like to-go containers, they would be less messy and user-friendly. Using this alternative, Aramark would save money on to-go containers, but incur the cost of hiring additional employees to wash dishes.

Laverdiere mentioned the frequency of theft from cafeterias as another impediment to improving dinnerware quality. Laverdiere estimated that $50,000 to $60,000 worth of dinnerware is stolen from Brandeis cafeterias every year. Newmark confirmed this estimate, and added that this expense is built into the cost of student meal plans.

"Regardless of the economics, [getting new dishware] is the right thing to do from an environmental standpoint," Laverdiere said. "The key will be to reduce the [number of] items that leave the dining hall so we won't have to constantly replace them."

To encourage students to use dishes rather than to-go containers, SEA is trying to establish a new incentive program to replace last year's offering of free pizza in return for ten uses of non-disposable plates. Gordon said that SEA is urging a more widely appealing incentive such as dining points or WhoCash.

Laverdiere noted that students are using more silverware this year, probably because of differences in display and accessibility. This year, the plasticware is not as prominently displayed as it was in the past. In Usdan Caf, it is located off to the side and only the silverware is kept near the cash registers.

There are some additional areas, Gordon said, in which Aramark has taken strides. She said that Aramark will re-fill coffee in a large travel mug for the price of a small coffee, and has also begun wrapping sandwiches in the Boulevard in paper "because it's less wasteful" than using plastic containers.



Those blue bins: not just pretty trash cans

SEA is also urging students to recycle within their residence halls. Group members are currently surveying all the rooms on campus to determine how many are lacking recycling bins, and Horowitz said that SEA expects to provide a bin to every room by the middle of November.

She added that Brandeis has had problems sustaining bins since students often damage the bins or take them home at the end of the term. SEA is working with Facilities and Residence Life to include the bins on the Room Condition Reports (RCRs), which will ensure that Brandeis fines students for the destruction or theft of bins.

Students are expected to transfer recyclable material from their personal bins into the larger bins called "slim jims" in each hallway, or outside the building for suites. Custodians then transport these materials to dumpsters.

Finn explained the ensuing routine. A vendor called Save That Stuff collects the recycling twice a week from "toters," massive bins located around campus, deposits the recyclables into larger dumpsters outside the Epstein building, and later transports the contents to a recyclable material handling facility.



"Contaminated" recyclables

Some students say that custodians lump together recycling and trash, essentially rendering recycling attempts futile.

"I see our cleaning lady throwing all of our recycling into the trash," Jeffrey Roberts '07 said. "So even though I'm trying [to recycle], it's not happening."

According to Finn, most custodians place trash bags on the same cart as recyclables and later separate them. He said that students see the bags on the cart and mistakenly assume they are thrown away together.

Still, students say they see the contents of contaminated bins thrown directly into the trash.

Containers must be empty of all food and liquid residue in order to be recycled. "The no-food aspect is especially hard to control in the dining halls and Shapiro campus center," Gordon said.

Grodsky explained the serious problem this poses for the recycling program. Custodians must trash all of the bin's contents if it is "contaminated" by food or other non-recyclable products. She said that SEA is creating a new poster to hang by the recycling bins that explains what can and cannot go in the bins.

"It does seem that there might be some custodians who throw away uncontaminated recycle bins," Grodsky continued. "For this situation, the only thing we can do is note where and at what time this happens, and [custodial services will] re-train them on the policies of recycling."

SEA is currently creating a survey for custodians at Brandeis. It will ask what actions students can take to facilitate the process.

SEA members are also working to join Recycle Mania, an inter-collegiate competition whose winner is the school that recycles the most waste. SEA is also coordinating with Student Activities to make recycling bins mandatory at all student events.

Horowitz said she views Brandeis as a campus engaged in social issues and thinks that those ideals should translate to the environment as well.

"Recycling is becoming an increasingly important issue," Horowitz said. "Brandeis prides itself on being socially conscious, so it needs to focus now on encouraging sustainability. There are more and more people in the world, and we're not creating more and more resources.