FAIRBANKS, Alaska (KTVF) – All over campus at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), bins mark opportunities for students and community members to dispose of recyclable materials.
According to Chris Tolver, Student Lead at the UAF Office of Sustainability, “We will put bins in high-traffic areas, so if there is perhaps an elevator nearby in any building, they’ll be near elevators. If there are dining facilities, we often try to have a bin associated with those.”
Run out of UAF’s Office of Sustainability, the current recycling program has been in place since around 2010, said UAF Sustainability Coordinator Christi Kemper. “Students at UAF wanted to see more sustainability initiatives on campus, so they decided to create a Student Sustainability Fee, and they worked with student government to get a brand new fee put into place.”
The program operates year-round, with summer being a slower season that the school year. “The highest seasons would be around springtime, just because people are doing their spring cleaning and they’re cleaning everything out,” said Tolver.
“All of the work is done by two to three student employees working from 10 to 20 hours a week each,” Kemper explained.
The university accepts cardboard, paper and numbers one and two plastics, as well as aluminum and glass.
These materials are periodically gathered from a network of 150 bins found all across campus. “Every bin should get checked at least once a week, but could be up to two, three times a week depending on the traffic in the building. There’s buildings that do more recycling than others, so we are able to keep track of that,” said Tolver.
Items are then sorted and cardboard is sent through a baler. According to Kemper, student employees “hand sort all of the items that they pick up to make sure it’s clean for the recycling facility.”
Caps are usually removed from plastic bottles, Tolver said, “Because it’s a different plastic than the ones and twos that they allow to take.”
Recyclables then go around Fairbanks to facilities that can further process them.
Cardboard, paper, batteries and plastics go to the borough’s Central Recycling Facility. Aluminum goes to C&R Pipe and Steel. Electronics, meanwhile, are sent to Green Star of Interior Alaska, while ink cartridges go to be used by the Bridge Program run out of the school district.
Finally, the university pulverizes its own glass for use as fill by Facilities Services.
Users of UAF’s recycling bins are asked to make sure that items are clean and empty before attempting to recycle them. “If anything is drenched to the point where it might start molding, that could mess up any processes,” said Tolver, adding that despite its popularity on campus, pizza boxes with oil or grease on them cannot be recycled.
Kemper spoke about the success of the program, saying, “It’s not an easy thing to do here in Fairbanks, recycle, evidenced by the different programs we’ve had over the years, so I think it’s really inspiring that it’s all in the hands of the students.”
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