“It’s cool but only in like, a super depressing way.” These were words spoken to me from the girl sitting next to me during the watching of the 2015 documentary, Chasing Coral. She was referring to the fluorescent beauty the corals underwent as a last attempt at surviving the warm temperatures. Initially, I just agreed with her and moved on. However, after processing this statement, I realized what a pessimistic generation we’ve become. This was truly the reason for our problem of climate change. ‘Realists’ talk about how it’s too late do reverse the effects and our diminishing chances with climate change, preaching that trying to fix the problem is ignorant or a waste of time--they may be right. One of the reasons why I support the Precious Plastic Project project so much is because it’s a partial solution to the plastic waste/pollution problem by keeping plastics out of landfills and out of our oceans.
Everywhere you go, plastic can be found whether it be from the utensils you eat with, the toys you play with, or the pencil you write with. It is so very engraved into our culture as a consumerist society as Americans as well as the entire world. More increasingly so on beaches, it is not so hard to find a plastics as it is a grain of sand, especially when referring to microplastics. Precious Plastic is a global project that advocates for a boost in recycling, specifically in plastics. Using the website, everyday people (that’s us!) can learn to recycle plastic materials in an effort to lessen this pervasive issue. Although, it is not the be-all-end-all solution. Precious Plastic (DePauw) won’t be the thing to save the world, but it shows that we are making an effort.
On a less serious note, the Recycling Group’s efforts this week... have been the most productive since we’ve taken on Precious Plastic DePauw. After finding sources about recycling in the area, we still wanted information about DePauw’s history of recycling because there isn’t a lot available. This made talking to Tony Robertson, who has been working as Facilities Care and Space Management at DePauw since 1982 so informative and so so (and I cannot stress this enough) so cool! I loved hearing about his perspective on recycling in the past and how it’s changed into what it is today. Hearing that DePauw recycling got off to a rocky start was both endearing and valuable. Although it was not exactly surprising to hear that it was first seen as extra work for staff and extremely disorganized, learning about this process and the struggles associated with it helped because we know what we can do better going forward with this project.
These past couple of weeks, we’ve mainly been researching the differences between the source of recycling for DePauw and the surrounding area of Greencastle. We were also looking into how other college campuses have done with recycling based projects. We know that DePauw University uses Ray's Trash Service, while the Putnam county uses Republic Services. We looked on both websites and compared what individuals can and can’t recycle. Overall, Ray’s allowed a little more variety in what could be accepted. In addition to talking to Tony Robertson, bringing Suzi Denton, a Ray’s Trash Service representative, into the discussion was enlightening as well. Some things on their website that were supposed to be accepted were not however, such as juice boxes and broth containers, which normally have an aluminum lining on the inside.
To be honest, after talking with Suzi, I’m still a little confused on whether some items are deemed unacceptable because their website never elaborated on plastic mixing or mentioned anything about the 10% contamination rule (or maybe I just don’t see it). I see this as a critical piece of information for anyone using their services though. I did learn more about the glass situation however and was kind of shocked to find that although it’s cheap to make (just a combination of heat, sand, and water!), it’s pretty difficult to manage and work with when loose in bins because it breaks and becomes hazardous. I don’t see any other alternative to that since that’s the form consumers normally purchase it in, but it was good to hear that unlike plastic, when it does get broken down, it doesn’t harm its environment because it’s mainly just sand. I never really thought about it, but I’m okay with that ending up in landfills if it just ends up resulting in sand, which makes me wonder--if it’s cheap to make and doesn’t harm the environment, why don’t companies use it more? Anyway, eventually after adding up this information, we plan to create a flowchart that could be placed on or around recycling bins that can more easily lead people through whether or not their particular item is recyclable. A version for Republic Services would also be used at TZ Elementary hopefully. Here is a draft for DePauw:
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