From Ecologic

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When you look at this logo, does RPI's current recycling program come to mind? If not, why don't we change it? We boast a lofty "Why Not Change The World?" campaign, so let's put it in action! If you're serious about making a difference on campus and want to work with other people who are serious too, you're in the right place. Help us change the way RPI recycles!

Contents 1 Overview 1.1 Vision Statement 1.2 Project Summary 1.3 Organizations Involved 1.4 Contact List 2 Recycling Project 2.1 Announcements/News 2.2 Roadmap 2.2.1 Public Relations 2.2.1.1 Now 2.2.1.2 Future 2.3 Tasks 2.4 Data 2.5 General Information 2.5.1 Recycling Plastics 2.5.2 Recycling Metals 2.5.3 Recycling Lightbults 2.5.4 Other Links 2.6 Arguments Against Recycling

[edit] Overview

[edit] Vision Statement

We need to develop this as a group

We want to get everyone on campus to know about recycling, what they can recycle, and to bring recycling into their daily lives. This is to better the planet, and to cut the impact on our wallets (it's cheaper to recycle!).

[edit] Project Summary

As a collaborative effort by student groups Ecologic, ESW, and the RPI Student Senate, students are taking the lead to change the way RPI recycles. A team of 20+ students is now forming to deal with this outstanding issue. Several individuals were working to improve the recycling situation on campus for quite some time, but they joined efforts and formed this group on Sept 25, 2007 at an Ecologic meeting (see Meeting Minutes for details) with about a dozen students present and interested. The group aims to systematically analyze the current status of recycling on campus, gather data on how much recyclable material goes into the waste stream, how much this costs RPI, and what can be done to change it. The group intends to compile their research into a case study and submit a proposal to the powers that be for review. If plans go accordingly, a new and revised recycling program will be underway by the end of (Fall 2007? Spring 2008?).

[edit] Organizations Involved

The following organizations are working together to advance the Recycling Initiative:

• Ecologic
• Engineers for a Sustainable World
• The Student Senate

We're always looking for other groups to get involved. We're currently seeing if we can get the College Democrats to join us in supporting this important project. If any other group would like to get involved, contact Frank Tobia, Aaron 'AK' Kendall, or Ben Cohen.

[edit] Contact List

• Ecologic President: Frank Tobia
• Recycling Coordinator: Steve Davis (RPI Staff)(recycling@rpi.edu)(X2284)
• Building & Utility Services: Steve Angle (RPI Staff)
• ESW Correspondent: AK (major: NE/EP; year: jr/sr)
• Student Senate Correspondent: Ben Cohen

[edit] Recycling Project

[edit] Announcements/News

• Help us figure out What's Wrong with Recycling?
• We are developing a Recycling Pre-Proposal for discussion with the administration
• This page will be the hub of all the activity for this project. Come here to find out who's doing what, when things are happening, share and collaborate ideas, host discussions, make announcements & suggestions, or anything else related to the Recycling Project.
• Task Organization is currently in the works - see below for the most updated version
• So I (Ben Cohen) would like to do some data collection in the union next week. I will contact Steve Davis and see what times he is available to "teach" us how to to this. Once I set a time with him I will post it here.
• Steve Davis and I will be meeting in front of the Union on Tuesday, October 2nd at 1:30 pm to collect data for the union garbages and recycling. If you are interested please contact me (cohenb2@rpi.edu) by Monday, as Steve needs a count so he can bring the correct number of "Hazmat" suits.
• I would like to thank David Jendras for helping at the first union waste audit. As a result of the data collected I am currently working on getting a proposal approved by the Union Admisitration to do an "experiment" on the third floor of the Student Union in which the bins at the end of each table are removed and recycling and garbage "stations" set up. This will hopefully happen at the end of October/early November and I will be needing help to take data and observe the changes we have made: before, during and after. I will, hopefully next week 17-21 October, have another waste audit in the Union so that we have better data and averages. I will have Frank send out an email when I determine the time of said audit.
• Ben Cohen, August Fietka(Student Senate), and Steve Davis are meeting with ResLife on Monday October 17th at 10:15am (meeting was cancled and we are currently making another) to discuss the recycling program in undergraduate dorms and graduate student housing as well. We would like to see bins provided for individual dorm rooms so that waste is sorted in room and brought to stations for continued stream maintenence. With our extra gained time we are going to write up a proposal for specific bins which could be purchased by the institute to provide as in room bins in the dorms. Currenly only a single receptacle is provided, so how are people expected to recycle in the dorms?
• I (BC) have also been recieving data from Steve Davis regarding garbage and recyclable disposal, weight and costs, throughout campus for the past few years. If anyone would like to help me sort throught this to help build a strong case for the proposal please contact me (cohenb2@rpi.edu) and we can start working on this more seriously.
• I would like to do another union waste audit this Friday (10-19) at 3pm in the union lobby off 15th street. Please contact me by email or just show up on time.

[edit] Roadmap

Steps:

1. Prove there's a problem
2. Talk to people in charge, and get them on board:
   • recycling guy (Steve Davis)
   • Steve Angle
3. Put together a report showing why we need to do this

[edit] Public Relations

[edit] Now

• I have a press release half written whenever we are ready but I need some more information. The purpose of this release will be to generate some expectation and excitement about this project in the community and throughout RPI -Elly

[edit] Future

• Pictures: I would also like a picture to send out, perhaps of people dumpster diving/standing on a dumpster. Do you think the photography club would be interested in taking a picture some night when people are dumpster diving?
• We can also Look into Releasing the Research after its done. We can include this information at a Terra Cafe event (and have people sign a petition), we can print out a pamphlet preferably on recycled paper, and put them around RPI, and I can also write up a follow-up press release for the poly, and outside media contacts.
• After the project is outlined in a proposal, student petitions would be a big help in getting it approved

[edit] Tasks

Main page: Recycling Project Tasks

[edit] Data

Graphs and data that Ben put together from the dumpster dives:

[edit] General Information

A General List of Basic Recycling Information :

[edit] Recycling Plastics

Approximately 80% of plastics sent in for recycling actually end up in landfill. This is due to the tricky process of remelting plastics so that they mee the quality control requirements. If the a small amount of the incorrect type of plastic is melted together with another type of plastic, then the plastic will be unusable. However this does not mean you should throw out plastic items. Let the recyclers decide if it should be landfilled or recycled. They're probably a little better at it than you are.

Some Interesting Facts about recycling plastics: http://earth911.com/plastic/plastic-bottle-recycling-facts/

[edit] Recycling Metals

Mining for new raw materials such as the ore of varoius metals like nickel and iron is always much more environmentally damaging and costly than recylcing metal that has already been refined. Metal can be recylced over and over for by re-melting it together. Unlike plastic, even if the composition is not perfect, the re-melted metal can still be used for low strength and low cost applications.

[edit] Recycling Lightbults

Many people today use energy efficient light bulbs in their home, however they may not know that these fluorescent bulbs contain mercury, which if thrown out in landfills, can be damaging to the environment. To prevent this damage, the EPA has compiled a list of basic information regarding this mercury containing light bulbs. This information can be found here:

http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/hazard/wastetypes/universal/lamps/index.htm

[edit] Other Links

The Internet Consumer Recycling Guide: http://www.obviously.com/recycle/

• of particular interest their short guide to basic recycling: http://www.obviously.com/recycle/guides/shortest.html

Bureau of International Recycling: http://www.bir.org/aboutrecycling/index.asp

[edit] Arguments Against Recycling

Many people argue that recycling is more costly than simply obtaining new raw materials due to the fact that recycling requires a large investment in infrastructure as well as research, not to mention the cost of physically melting down metals. Much of this is true.

For example The United States spends about 20 billion dollars a year in investment for reasearch for new recycling methods. However this pales in comparison to what the United States spends on its annual military budget of $541 billion dollars for 2009. This does not even include money being spent outside of the defense department budget such as nuclear weapons research. All in all, the United States spends a lot of money and it is not missing the relatively small amount spent on recycling programs.

If you are curious, you can find more information on the US defense budget here:

 "http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending" World Military Spending, GlobalIssues.org 

In terms of physically melting down recycled materials for reuse, yes this requires large furnaces that use a lot of energy. However, to extract iron from iron ore, large blast furnaces are required. These blast furnaces heat up the iron ore until it turns to a liquid. Then due to differences in density, the impurities float to the top of this liquid mixture while the pure iron sinks to the bottom of the furnace. Then the iron can be poured into molds periodically to drain the furnace and make room for more ore to be added to the mixture. Basically these furnaces need to run continuously for extended periods of time using up massive amounts of energy.

As you can probably deduce, this is much more energy needy than melting down recycled materials. This is because when melting down recycled items, the material is pre-sorted, so you do not have to run the furnace for extended periods of time. You only need to run it until all the material becomes a uniform mixture. This takes significantly less time. Not to mention that recycling bypasses the entire mining operation which use heavy machinery which costs hundreds of thousands of dollars per day, various high explosives, and it creates giant uninhabitable holes in the earth.