SAO plans events for larger ‘buy recycled’ campaign

Boston University’s Environmental Student Organization began last week a campaign called ‘BU Buy Recycled’ to persuade university administrators to purchase recycled paper, ESO officials said last week.

ESO, a group of approximately 300 students, is asking the administrative offices at BU to begin buying paper that is 30 percent to 100 percent post-consumer waste, officials in the group said.

The project is an effort to close the ‘recycling loop,’ from consumers to recycle bins to recycling companies to store shelves to consumers once again. There must be a market for recycled products, which there isn’t yet, students said. Recycled paper is still considered a niche market, they said.

ESO is working on the effort with numerous environmental groups at schools from the area as a part of the Boston Area Student Environmental Coalition, working to create a larger market for the products. The group has spelled out ‘BU Buy Recycled’ in Warren Towers windows for the past week.

But the effort’s next step, according to ESO Recycling Committee co-chairwoman Kat Hedges, is to distribute packages of recycled paper, gift-wrapped in recycled paper, to the BU various departments they feel will most likely adopt the environment-friendly paper. They will hand the gifts out Wednesday, organizers said.

The Office of the Provost, Office of the Chancellor and Purchasing Office will all be targets of the event, as they are the most influential, Hedges, a College of Arts and Sciences Freshman, said.

ESO officials said they hope BU administrators will follow the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which has begun using recycled paper. The use of recycled paper is not mandated at MIT, but administrators began to encourage its departments to purchase the paper three years ago, and since then between 50 and 75 percent of the school’s departments have begun to use recycled paper, Hedges said.

‘One of the examples we will be including in the gift-wrapped packages is the paper that MIT uses,’ Hedges said. ‘In each of the gift-wrapped packages we will include numerous types of paper, with different price ranges, but all high-quality.’

According to Hedges, the recycled paper would cost 10 to 20 cents more per case than non-recycled paper, but ESO is hoping if all of the schools involved in BASEC, including Boston College, Harvard University and Brandeis University, buy the recycled paper in bulk, it will help to drive down the cost.

BASEC and ESO are also planning to hold a joint press conference with state legislators and Boston city councilors on Earth Day, Apr. 22, during which they will ask Boston area colleges and universities to begin purchasing recycled paper, Hedges said.

‘Eventually, we hope to make the recycled paper available in all of the departments at BU, because that will close the ‘recycling loop’ so there is a demand for recycled paper,’ Hedges said.