Despite recycling bins scattered across Mississippi State University’s campus, students question whether the collected items are genuinely recycled. Concerns have risen over city regulations and logistical issues that may limit the effectiveness of MSU’s recycling efforts.
Most bins on campus are indicated by surrounding signage, and they typically share a larger receptacle with a regular garbage can. The recycling program at MSU currently accepts paper, cardboard, plastic, tin and aluminum cans.
Unfortunately, often, the waste emptied into these bins is either contaminated by other substances, like unrecyclable trash or does not fit in the proper categories, making it unsuitable for processing facilities.
Piper Bratton, a student intern at the Office of Sustainability, explained that effectively and adequately recycling is difficult, mainly due to the constraints on the program throughout Mississippi.
“There’s a difference between what is acceptable for recycling on campus and what’s acceptable in Starkville. So Starkville, what’s accepted is cardboard, paper, tin and aluminum. They don’t take any plastics,” Bratton said. “However, on campus, we are able to take plastics #1 and #2. That’s the only plastic we’re allowed. We really do try to push that through like flyers we put on campus and like informational events because of contamination, meaning that if you put plastic that isn’t one or two, it completely contaminates what’s already in there.”
Bratton explained that anything found contaminated during the sorting process would ultimately be thrown in with the other trash and disposed of in the same way. This would make the recycling effort virtually useless, as only very small amounts of what is sent to the sorting facilities are recycled.
Aubrey Palmer, the education director of Students for a Sustainable Campus, said the university should do its part in taking care of the planet, and they do not think MSU is meeting that expectation.
“Unfortunately, I sit in Old Main every day, and it’s really sad, but I watch the janitors who pick up the trash there, reach in the recycling and just put it in the trash bags. I guess it’s because they can’t be bothered to collect both,” Palmer said. “But a lot of the things that get put in the recycling ultimately do not end up getting even to the recycling dumpster, and once that dumpster is collected, a lot of them have really high contamination rates because people don’t know exactly what goes in there.”
Palmer’s observations highlight a deeper issue with waste management on campus. While janitorial staff may avoid separating recycling from trash, others have voiced concerns over the difficult and sometimes unsanitary conditions they faced when recycling was first implemented.
“We have attempted to work with housing, and we have very strong pushback against the recycling there,” Palmer said. “A few years ago, it was implemented, and the way that they did it was to have the janitorial staff sort through it by hand to reduce the contamination rate, and the janitors in the dorms had to pull out human feces and vomit and things that they should not have to be handling for getting paid $10 an hour, and they unionized, and they went on strike, and they pushed back against recycling.”
Addressing contamination and labor concerns could be key to revitalizing recycling efforts on campus. Palmer suggested clearer recycling guidelines and more effective waste separation processes, but until these issues are resolved, skepticism around MSU’s recycling practices is likely to persist.
“There’s a bin in Subway that’s the only one that I know of. I’ve heard a lot of people talk about them on campus where it’s literally the same bin. A lot of them are split into separate bins and the janitors,” Palmer said. “I’m not really one to speak for the reason that the janitors do not collect both of them appropriately, but that is something that happens if I would leave that the reasoning to be given by the managers for that program.”
Lucy Mellen, a senior geoscience at MSU, described how she has approached recycling during her time at the university. Mellen highlighted the challenges she faces during the recycling process.
“I’ve always recycled on campus using the bins around major buildings like the Union and Old Main, and when I lived on campus I used to collect my recycling and bring it to the bigger recycling dumpsters located in a couple spots on campus,” Mellen said. “I never felt like it was very easy to recycle, because you have to carry your recyclables until you find a place to dispose of them, and I have also found that many students are not aware that you cannot recycle plastic on campus.”
Due to the difficulty in the recycling availability on campus and throughout the city, even the most environmentally conscious individuals have difficulty recycling effectively. Mellen explained why she recycles less than she did in previous years.
“Starkville also doesn’t have curbside or very consistent recycling anymore, which makes it difficult to recycle in the city,” Mellen said. “I think about recycling and the amount of waste I produce all the time, but honestly, I don’t recycle very much anymore because it’s not super accessible on campus. I consider myself more environmentally conscious than many, but the convenience, or lack thereof, affects even my likelihood of recycling.”
Regardless of the limitations to local recycling, Bratton, Palmer and Mellen agreed that recycling and environmental awareness are essential to protecting the planet.
“Recycling is important because it is not our place to over-extract from the earth. And in Mississippi and in America, we are some of the most extractive everyday people on the planet,” Palmer said. “It’s our goal, and our part, to help the planet to create a future that works for everybody, and just to be less wasteful to make things as best as they can be. I think nobody can really disagree with the sentiment of being less wasteful.”
