I just got back from Sustainable Design and I'm thinking "save
the world." I go into my kitchen to get a snack and what do I see? Two overflowing brown paper bags stuffed with cans, jars, and other recyclables.
The roommate and I both like to recycle. One of my best friends is super hippie and washes and reuses Solo cups, ziplock bags, etc. and got me feeling guilty for throwing recyclables away. When I was growing up we had bins for newspaper, cans, plastic and glass. We would put them outside the house once a week and they would get picked up. It was so easy.
When I went to undergrad, I wasn't as eco-friendly. It was harder to find bins and my roommates didn't care to recycle, so we didn't. When I came up here, though, my roommate was into recycling and I started feeling bad throwing things away. So we started the recycling bags. Where to put the items once the bags became full, we didn't worry about till it happened.
The first time I had to dispose of the recycling, I took plastic bags filled with the cans and jars to
Ford, and separated them into the recycling bins. I know, this sounds crazy, but I figured that I was going to Ford anyways and whats 5 minutes separating plastic, glass, and aluminum if I could be helping to save the world. I did it once more and decided it wasn't working out for me. That didn't stop the recycling effort though, and the bags started filling up.
Now, the roommate and I want to recycle. We rinse out the cans and jars and put them aside to recycle. We just don't know what to do with the stuff. There are about 8 big dumpsters within 30 yards of my backdoor, but no recycling
bins. When we moved in they didn't have any information for us about recycling. It's just such a hassle to do the right thing. Maybe Northwestern should do a community program and try fix this. Isn't that something universities do? And if NU is doing something, it really needs to advertise it better. There is definitely some service design work to be done here.
I just want to recycle... I just want to save the world... Is that too much to ask?
I think it is difficult to change people’s behavior without applying any type of reinforcement. In Korea, the government decided get involved with the recycling process, giving fines if people don’t recycle paper, cans, plastic, and even leftover food. They also give rewards to the people who do recycle materials. Also, companies have been taking action to encourage people to recycle. Stores have started charging 10c for each vinyl bag and 20c for paper bags, but give 10c to the people who use their own carrying bag. The act of threatening and rewarding people’s financial budget enlightened the public about how important recycling is.
ReplyDeleteAs a renter, you typically have to work through your management company to get a recycling receptacle put in your alley. Unfortunately, the management company probably pays extra for this and if they don't see a direct correlation between having a recycling receptacle and attracting more renters, they probably won't bother. It wouldn't hurt to ask them if the option is available.
ReplyDeleteUnless you live in university housing, I think it might be hard for Northwestern to have much influence here. But it's not a bad idea to start a student group which leans on area landlords to provide recycling bins to their renters--students are a significant part of the renter population around here.