We Recycle Beer Cans For Monies... By Matt Miller

Dear Environmentally-types,

I've got some questions. I've been seeing your posters around campus, and I think that
encouraging conservation and recycling is a noble goal. As a small point: you say on one
of your posters that people produce "4.5 pounds of garbage" in a given amount of time--a
day, I suppose. What does that mean? Garbage? Garbage, to me, is the scrap food that
you feed to your livestock; it doesn't mean non-biodegradable waste, and it doesn't mean
trash. So this is more a criticism concerning clarity.

But seeing these signs has had me thinking. I want to recycle, and I try to--we separate
the cardboard and metal into separate bags in my apartment, recycle what #2 plastic we
can find. It makes me think of being abroad in Scotland, where they had six different
dumpster-sized containers for the recycling needs of 80 people.

And it makes me think of the scene out in front of my dorm, where we've got three,
unlabelled, slightly-larger-than-trashcan size containers that are supposed to meet the
recycling needs of...what? 81 people, at least.

You want us to recycle, Denison powers that be? Give us labeled locations, so we know
where we're supposed to be putting our aluminum and where our cardboard goes. Give us
locations that are emptied regularly, and that don't require stacking your bags of
unsorted recycling against the little blue boxes. And give us locations that can
accommodate the sheer quantity of recycling that the number of people are going to
produce. We, as students, need to change our ethos about recycling. But it's hard to
convince people that recycling is valued when it results in overflowing containers and
trashbags sprawled along the curb.

Matt Miller