A Boston University student group is planning to revamp the university’s recycling program, which has been criticized for its ineffectiveness, by submitting an environmental proposal to administrators.
The BU Waste Reduction Team, a group of 17 students, began working on the proposal after the Financial Affairs and Administration Office — which oversees the finances of the BU recycling program — requested proposals to improve campus recycling at a more affordable price.
The office is planning to select the most practical plan within the next 45 to 60 days from a pool of six proposals, including the Waste Reduction Team’s draft, as well as those compiled by recycling companies and trash contractors, said Office Assistant Vice President Mark Harney.
The student group’s proposal aims to improve visibility of recycling bins in academic buildings, said Waste Reduction Team leader Rebecca Haskell, a School of Education sophomore, who said she wants to see university recycling in more than just on-campus residence halls.
Haskell has assigned group members to work with either the deans or the deans’ liaisons of BU colleges to create a list of recycling locations for each building.
“They’re trying to do what the administration [wants] done,” said Assistant Provost Michael Field. “They’re using their own ideas to improve [recycling], which is wonderful because it shows the students are actively engaged.”
The group’s efforts come a few weeks after three BU professors, citing a lack of on-campus environmental sustainability awareness, sent a letter to President Robert Brown and started an online petition appealing for more attention to the issue.
Brown’s Strategic Planning Task Force report, released in October 2006, did not mention any plans for BU environmental initiatives. The petition, made available Feb. 20, had received 1,033 signatures as of last night.
“I think it’s fabulous that we’ve created the energy in the community that people are bringing up an initiative like this and talking about it and seeing how much resonance there is in the community,” Brown said in a March 2 interview with The Daily Free Press. “It’s wonderful that we’re starting to act like a university.”
Last fall, CAS and School of Education professor Douglas Zook, one of the petition’s three authors, criticized BU’s current recycling program for its lack of accessible recycling facilities.
The Financial Affairs and Administration Office’s main criteria are how the university can recycle the most items and how it can best collect from a campus that stretches two miles down Commonwealth Avenue, Harney said.
“We’re asking companies to come in and say, ‘We’ll do recycling for X amount of dollars,” he said.
Field approved Haskell’s proposal last November, prompting her to recruit members for the Waste Reduction Team in December.
“Rebecca’s students are finding ways — for very little extra expense — to improve the visibility of recycling on campus,” Field said.
Haskell, who said she is also working with three other environmental groups on separate projects, said she wants to see recycling receptacles placed in locations with a high flow of students and in specific locations in on-campus academic buildings so people would know exactly where to find them.
“I’m from California, and I feel like we tend to be a little more appreciative of the environment in that state,” she said. “We were recycling all through elementary and high school.”
Haskell said she became environmentally active at BU last summer while working with Environmental Health and Safety Office Manager Paul Kelly when she assisted Kelly with recycling projects and ran the office’s printer-cartridge recycling program.
The Environmental Health and Safety Office, Facilities Plant and Management and the Office of Residence Life collaborate to manage the BU recycling program, including recycling-bin distribution and pickup along the Charles River Campus, according to the recycling program website.
Haskell said since there is no single person in charge of recycling at BU, she learned who to talk to and how to draft a proposal to appeal to the BU administration.
“I basically learned how the university operates and how I would be able to operate within it,” she said.
While the Waste Reduction Team continues meeting with deans and area managers, Haskell is still clearing up a few areas, such as how and where the bins will be emptied and picked up by Capital Paper, the company in charge of gathering BU’s recycling.
“Everyone has been very supportive,” she said. “Everyone likes the idea — it’s finding the steps to make it happen, which is the obstacle.”