Student and administrative leaders at Mississippi State University have begun working toward creating a unified recycling program on campus.
A group composed of leaders including Student Association President Braxton Coombs, associate vice president for student affairs Bill Broyles, director of campus planning and sustainability Jim Jones and representatives from other groups including facilities management, Aramark and members of the Starkville community met last week to discuss creating a plan in regards to recycling at the university.
Coombs said continued interest from students and faculty helped bring the issue to the forefront.
“Students have continuously come to the SA and voiced their concerns – and faculty as well – about the possibility of bring more standardized recycling programs to Mississippi State University,” Coombs said.
He said he contacted Jones about the issue, and the initial meeting in which the group discussed the issue took place.
“What we did was talk about what’s going on right now and the smaller programs … the university is taking part in,” Coombs said.
In a university press release, Jones said the current campus recycling programs include the collection and transportation of paper products from 75 buildings, the collection of recyclables by the Residence Hall Association, efforts by the School of Architecture and the collection of electronic waste by the property control department.
Despite multiple attempts, Jones could not be reached for further comment.
Broyles said the efforts would bring together the existing programs and increase the overall effectiveness.
“Everybody here is all about trying to make Mississippi State better, but when you’re shooting [in many different directions] sometimes you don’t make as big of an impact, but when you work together things happen,” he said.
Broyles said in addition to coordinating current campus recycling measures, the efforts will raise student awareness of recycling programs.
“We all have to protect the environment and I think the more visible we are, the more people that will want to be part of that,” he said. “It’s more of a coordination and publicity effort in order to let the campus community know ways that it can participate.”
Coombs said the group’s goal is to make recycling accessible to everyone on campus.
“What we want is an official and standardized recycling program on campus where when you see a garbage can there’s going to be a recycling bin for the most part where students can have that option to recycle if they so choose, which hopefully they will,” Coombs said.
He said efforts are being made to coordinate with the MSU Recycling Club in expanding the recycling programs.
Recycling Club president Dana Aguillard said the club had been contacted in regards to plans for game day cleanup and recycling.
“We had been talking about passing out recycling bags for cans [on game days],” she said. “We’re trying to spread awareness and trying to put recycling bins all over campus.”
Aguillard said student response to recycling on campus has been positive, but that it’s important to centralize the efforts.
“They have bins for the residence halls . and the student response has been amazing,” Aguillard said. “We’re one of the only schools in the [Southeastern Conference] that doesn’t have a unified recycling system.”
She said in addition to promoting recycling through work at events like the Cotton District Arts Festival, the club plans to reach out to other groups as well.
“We’ve been trying to work with groups like the Greek system,” she said. “We’re mainly focused on campus, but we’re trying to work with [local advocacy group] Green Starkville, and we’re going to be working more closely with them this year.”
Having established the goal of creating a unified recycling system, Coombs said the group’s next step was to research options for the collection and disposal of the material.
“Right now we’re looking at different recycling companies that we might be able to outsource Mississippi State’s recycling initiatives,” Coombs said. “We’re going to see what our options are, the costs associated with it if there are costs and how much the bins cost or if they don’t cost anything.”
Sophomore history and English major Kara Chamberlain said she recently noticed the recycling bins in her residence hall.
“My roommate and I try to recycle just because we use a lot of plastics and things like that,” she said. “[Bins] are spread around the dorm, but we didn’t even know they were there until a few weeks ago when she [her roommate] pointed them out.”
Chamberlain said she liked the paper recycling receptacles in buildings like McCool Hall, but a more prominent or advertised program would increase overall recycling.
“I guess if they were a little more prominent or more advertised then people may use them more or if they were in more public areas like at the Union,” she said. “Recycling may not be very convenient because it’s not at every location you need it.”
Coombs said the recycling issue has received continued support and the university will continue to work on the program.
“It’s not something that the university is looking to make money off of,” he said. “It looks good for Mississippi State and there’s a lot of interest in it.”
He said he’s excited about the program and MSU joining the ever-growing “green” movement.
“I’m excited about seeing this thing take off,” Coombs said. “It’s a really great step for Mississippi State and joining some of these other universities across the country that are moving towards this green effort.”