Recycling Matters
Spring/Summer 1997
Features:
- Waste Not, Want Not
- U receives grant to pilot Food Composting Program in residence halls.
- View from the Curb - 100% Recycled, Unbleached Paper... An Update
- A new format for Recycling Matters, and all about the paper it is printed on.
- Sorting Out the Trash
- Volunteers sort through Residence Hall garbage to find out how much recyclable material is being thrown away.
- Ask Yu-Kan Toucan
- Find out from Yu-Kan how to recycle old overhead transparencies.z
- Volunteer to Downsize Your Solid Waste
- "Mini-bins" placed on employees' desks as a reminder to Recycle.
- Attention Laboratory Personnel
- Glass bottles that once held chemicals can not be recycled.
- Ten Tips for Hosting an Environment-Friendly Meeting or Conference
- Swapping Seats
- Almost trashed seats turned to treasure.
- Another Interesting Story of Reuse
- Mark Cornwell paves driveway with carpet.
Waste Not, Want Not
U Receives Grant to Pilot Food Composting Program in Residence Halls
UM Waste Management Services, along with the City of Ann Arbor, was recently awarded funding to pilot a program which will turn food waste into fertilizer. In true "town and gown" spirit, the University and City of Ann Arbor teamed up to pilot a food waste collection and composting program. Both entities jointly received a $19,000 grant in April from the Washtenaw County Department of Public Works under the "Green Backs for Green Acts" Innovative Grant Program. The pilot will test the technical and economic feasibility of adding prep-food waste from Dining Services kitchens to the City-operated yard waste composting facility off Platt Road.
According to Susan Todd, Washtenaw County Solid Waste Coordinator, "We tried to find projects that can become a model for others to replicate." According to Todd, there are no food waste composting systems currently operating in the State of Michigan.
Three residence halls will initially participate in the pilot this summer. Kitchen staff from East Quad, South Quad and Mary Markley will keep food scraps such as vegetable peelings, lettuce leaves, coffee grinds and egg shells separate from other trash. The program is only targeting food items that are currently in the solid waste stream; most prep-waste and all post-consumer (e.g. plate scrapings) food waste are sent down a garbage disposal unit in each kitchen (which leads to the sanitary sewer. Estimates on prep-food waste generated in Dining Service kitchens range from 52-120 tons per year.
Large, wheeling carts will be provided for each kitchen to use to store the food scraps. The material will then be picked up by Grounds & Waste Management staff and delivered to the composting site on the south side of Ann Arbor. It will be mixed with a bulking agent (wood chips) and formed into long plies or "windrows" where air can circulate. After the food scraps decompose, the finished compost will be tested to assess its potential as fertilizer or soil amendment.
The grant funding will provide for the additional collection labor, carts and equipment necessary for a one-semester pilot. Kitchen staff will be asked for feedback on the system's impact on their daily operations. Waste generation will be measured to establish benchmarks for typical institutional settings. The City's site will be a demonstration for similar facilities in Michigan. At the end of the fall semester, a summary report will be compiled to analyze financial, technical and practical costs and benefits. If the program proves successful - i.e., if costs for collecting and composting are less than the cost of conventional disposal - then the program may be expanded for a longer term.
View from the curb
Why the new format for Recycling Matters? Well, we "inherited" 28 reams of legal-sized unbleached, recycled paper from M-Stores this month. Due to the size of the paper, it was not selling well and M-Stores wished to discontinue it. We agreed to purchase all the unsold stock, and use it to publish this newsletter.
100% Recycled, Unbleached Paper... An Update
Conventional papers are made "white" by bleaching them with chlorine. Chlorine runoff from paper mills creates organochloride by-products, such as dioxin and furans, which are similar to DDT These compounds have adverse effects on human health, animal and plant life, and many ecological systems. According to Mary Beth Doyle, Environmental Health Project Coordinator for the Ann Arbor Ecology Center, "Many of these compounds are known to be toxic to wildlife and humans, causing cancer, and reproductive and developmental problems. Dioxin and other toxic organochlorines are of particular concern because they are very persistent in the environment and have the ability to concentrate up the food chain so even the release of small amounts may be harmful".
A bill was recently passed by the Consumer Protection Committee of the Michigan House of Representatives which would require state agencies to purchase chlorine-free paper. The bill calls for 1 0% of state paper purchases to be manufactured without the use of chlorine-based bleaching agents as long as the paper is affordable and meets other state specifications. The amount would rise 5% annually until 50% of paper purchases are chlorine-free. Bleaching methods determined to be safer by the U.S. EPA include oxygen, hydrogen peroxide and ozone. More miles in the U.S. and Canada are switching away from chlorine systems. The trend of using this type of paper has caught on in many cities and states. The City of Ann Arbor uses unbleached paper for all city correspondence, business and meeting packets.
Last year, University M-Stores made unbleached, 100% recycled paper available to campus departments. The paper, "Hammermill Unity DP," is made by de-inking paper without bleaching (this newsletter, for example, is printed on it). Since we last reported on Unity DP, only 60 cases have been sold, and M-Stores reports that many customers don't realize the paper is unbleached when they order it. Because of this confusion, M-Stores decided to discontinue stocking Unity DP once the current inventory is used up. After then, it will only be available by special order only. (Excerpt from "Ecology Reports" May 7 997, The Ecology Center of Ann Arbor)
8.5x11, 20 LB. 100% Recycled, Chlorine-Free. "Earthwhite" Case. #286230 8.5xl 1, 20 LB. w/3-HOLE PUNCH, 100% Recycled, Chlorine-Free. Case. #286278 *Please note the paper's color, "Earthwhite," is a light gray which many readers find easier on their eyes. Think of it as "whole wheat" paper! |
Sorting Out the Trash
Imagine digging through 3,200 pounds of garbage. Either you're a raccoon, a bear, or a student volunteer for the Waste Sort conducted by Housing Facilities and Waste Management Services. The two departments conducted a solid waste assessment of residence hall waste in January to monitor the success of current recycling efforts. Housing Facilities currently collects mixed paper and recyclable containers from student residence areas. Dining Services staff also recycle their cardboard and food and beverage containers.
The sort was conducted to assess the effectiveness of the current system, and to establish priorities for continuous improvement. (Basically, staff wanted to know how much recyclable material was still being thrown away.)
The sort itself took place on a cold, Saturday morning in late January at the North Campus Garage. Recycling Student Assistant, Jon Kazmierski, was instrumental in organizing the whole event. He even recruited twenty-five (25) student volunteers to pitch in, motivated by a free lunch, a t-shirt, and "an experience they'd never forget."
The truckload of trash from residence halls was dumped onto the floor, then placed on tables and sorted into twelve categories ranging from newspaper to food to plastic packaging to paper cups.
Materials were first measured by weight (pounds) which does not necessarily present the full picture of the waste profile. The volume (measured in cubic yards) of each category was then calculated by using average material densities (measured in pounds/cubic yard.) Both measures help complete the profile. For example, by weight, food waste was the most abundant item at 32%, and non-recyclable plastic items only amounted to 11% of the total. By volume, however, the non-recyclable plastic items amounted to 26% of the waste, while food was only 6%. Non-recyclable plastic items included plastic packaging, wrappers, and the trash bags themselves.
The good news is that Housing is already recycling almost 30% of all the waste generated in residence halls. The not-as-good news is that, still, 24% (by weight) of the remaining trash in the dumpsters are items that could have be recycled such as paper and bottles. (As a side note, compared to a similar waste assessment conducted at Michigan State University, UM is throwing away fewer recyclable materials. In MSU residence halls, 33% of the items in the trash were recyclable, compared to UM's 24%.) Staff believe, however, that more improvements can be made to recycle close to 50% of Housing's waste stream. Many of the recommendations focus on increasing student awareness and education. Qualitative observations clearly show that most of the trashed recyclables were generated in residence areas and not kitchen areas. In other words, most of the recyclable materials generated in Dining Service operations are already being recycled. For a copy of the U-M 1997 Residence Hall Waste Sort Report, call (734) 764-2663.
Ask Yu-Kan Toucan
Dear Yu-kan,
We throw away so many, overhead transparencies in our department every semester. I hate to think about all that wasted plastic. Is there a way to recycle these?
Yu-kan: Yes! I recently found out about a mail-back service now offered by the 3M(tm) Corporation for recycling overhead transparency film. With this service, you can recycle the film by mailing it back to a 3M facility in Pennsylvania. Every year, approximately 15 million pounds of polyester from transparency film is dumped into landfills. The film is a Type 1 polyester similar to soda bottles, but due to the film coatings, ink and toner, is not easily recycled. Because most local recycling centers will not accept this material, 3M offers the mail in service. The recycled polyester is converted to fiber fill for carpets and office chairs, insulating products, automotive products and more transparencies.
Any amount can be mailed or shipped back, but Waste Management Services is working on a system to consolidate smaller amounts of transparencies to ship back together. Stay tuned for more details. In the meantime, start saving your used overhead transparencies in an envelope, then mail them to one of the addresses below. So now, not only will you make a positive impact on your audience by using overheads, you will make a positive impact on the earth by recycling them when you're done!
Ship or mail transparencies direct for recycling to: |
Or campus mail them to us and we'll consolidate for mailing: |
Volunteer to Downsize Your Solid Waste!
Plant Operations' Waste Management Services and Building Services invite you to downsize your waste. We are looking for several University buildings and departments to participate in an innovative demonstration program to reduce solid waste and increase recycling efforts in your workplace.
Individual office employees will be asked to give up their deskside waste basket and deskside collection service in exchange for a 'mini' 6-inch trash can which sits atop their desk. Employees will take their own trash, as they already do for paper recycling, to a centrally located container. The mini bin acts as a constant visual reminder for employees to reduce and recycle their waste. The mini-bin system saves resources used on costly plastic trash bags. (The U goes through several thousand each week). This system is already in place at other institutions, including the University of Minnesota, University of British Columbia and AT&T's Headquarters in Atlanta. All report an increase in recycling efforts, a decrease in trash sent to the landfill, and greater employee awareness of their own waste disposal habits. Participating departments must be in a UM general fund building, have demonstrated support by the department or office director, and all employees must agree to participate. For details, send your name, dept, address and phone to Recycling (get address) or call Erica at 763-5539.
Attention Laboratory Personnel:
The recycling program cannot accept any glass bottles that once held chemicals. On numerous occasions, recycling staff have found the one-gallon, brown glass bottles in the Containers Recycling carts. This jeopardizes the quality of our recyclable materials and is considered a contaminant to recycling process. Please contact UM-OSEH at 763-4568 for proper disposal guidelines for laboratory chemical wastes, bottles and glassware.
Subscribe to Recycling Matters
Recycling Matters is mailed by request only. If this issue was not already addressed to you and you want to receive future issues, or if your address has changed e-mail Recycling (get address) with your name, dept, campus address, zip, and phone.
Top Ten Tips for Hosting an ENVIRONMENT-FRIENDLY CONFERENCE OR MEETING
10. Encourage attendees to carpool, or make them aware of public transportation options to and from the site.
9. Choose to use china and glassware at your functions instead of disposables. Serve beverages in cans, bottles or juice boxes that can be recycled on campus.
8. Make arrangements for extra paper or recycling bins to be conveniently placed around conference area. (Contact Waste Management for details.)
7. Use recycled paper and double-sided copying when possible for meeting handouts, flyers and registration materials.
6. Avoid making excess copies of handouts. Make some handouts (e.g. maps or guides to restaurants) available by request only, as not all attendees will want these.
5. Reuse any leftover materials or handouts for your next meeting. Make your materials re-useable by not printing specific information such as the date, location or other references that may not be applicable at a later time.
4. Encourage or require exhibitors and attendees to take their leftover materials with them when the conference ends.
3. Use re-useable name-badges (instead of stickers) and collect them at end.
2. Seek naturally lighted meeting spaces, and facilities that practice energy conservation.
1. Let attendees know your event or meeting is "green" and encourage their cooperation.
Double Side It!
Please place this reminder sticker on your office copier machine.
By making double-sided copies, you can reduce your paper usage by up to half of your current levels, and therefore reduce costs and help conserve trees and natural resources.
Swapping Seats
An interesting "transfer" took place this spring. When Richard Lindsey, Technical Director for the Trueblood Theater in the Frieze Building, installed 180 new seats he tried several avenues to donate or sell the old ones. After exhausting all the possibilities, including U-M Property Disposition, he contacted Jane Reading-Boyd of Waste Management Services for help in disposing of the old seats.
Meanwhile, on the other side of campus, it turns out that LS&A manages a television studio in the Argus Building and they were in need of some additional seating. Jane connected Richard with Steve Pratt, Technical Support for ITD, and the two were able to relocate about 30 of the theater seats for re-use in the Argus Building. It goes to show, one person's trash is another person's treasure!
And another interesting story of reuse...
Last spring during Student Move-Out, Senior Horticultural Assistant Mark Cornwell took about 15 student-discarded carpets to "pave" his driveway. Mark, who lives down a long, unpaved driveway, first laid down the carpets before placing gravel and stone over the top. One year later, he says the road is functioning well: The carpets keep weeds and grass from growing through; allow for water recharge; even out the weight distribution from vehicles driving down road; and controls erosion and potholes in the driveway.
Looseleaf Binders, various sizes and colors, are available at the Fleming Administration Building (call Cyndy Cleveland in University Relations at 7-2669), or the Bentley Archive Library (Call Marilyn McNitt at 4-3482).
Paper Clips are always available from the LS&A Cashier's Office. Just stop in with an envelope or coffee can and they can give you plenty!
Content modified: August 6, 2001
Please direct questions and comments to Recycling (get address). |
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