2008 Woodie Awards
Letter: Attentive recycler applauded by member of Waste Minimization team
Issue date: 2/7/08 Section: Editorial/Opinion
02/07/08 - Editor's note: This is an open letter to Ryan Elsmore in response to his Feb. 1 letter to the editor in which he said he saw a custodian empty a recycle bin into the trash.
To the Cigar,
As a member of the University of Rhode Island's Waste Minimization team, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to express your concern about the university's recycling efforts in the Library and on campus in general.
My team members and I find your concern for the environment very commendable and sincerely wish that the extended community were so involved. Enhanced and effective recycling creates sure returns, seen and unseen, that benefit all of us. We hope that your letter will be another element in helping the campus to focus its attention and energy on saving our environment.
Your letter also serves to underscore the need to change perceptions campus-wide about the effectiveness and dedication of our housekeepers' recycling efforts. To date, budget constraints have prevented us from equipping our housekeepers with updated custodial carts that include the blue and green vinyl recycling bags we need to augment our standard yellow trash bags.
To meet this challenge, our staff places separate trash liners (for paper, plastic and trash) inside the yellow vinyl trash containers on their carts, working diligently to ensure that all source-separated items are not mixed with trash. Though it may not be obvious, separate bags have been also been placed in the library's big tote.
Casual observation may lead one to suppose that our housekeepers are mixing trash with recyclables. To lay this misperception to rest, Custodial Services is working with the Waste Minimization team and URI's recycling department to secure funding to procure made-to-order blue and green vinyl bags that we can attach to our custodial carts.
We have teamed with W.W. Grainger Inc. - a large industrial supply corporation - to find a manufacturer willing to design and produce these bags to our specification. We're pleased to report that the design process will get underway in the next week or so.
Since the library processes a mountain of recyclables and trash, we are also working closely with senior Rubbermaid representatives to identify and put into operation a recycling/trash tote that will address the aforementioned perception gap, and otherwise meet the library's special recycling and trash-removal needs. We hope to test one of these totes soon.
Again, thanks from all of us for your letter. It will spur the Custodial Services department to accelerate our efforts to address recycling perception issues on campus.
The Waste Minimization team is always looking for new members. Please consider joining our team! We need dedicated, resourceful students to help us meet our mandate to significantly and permanently reduce the university's waste streams.
Doug Michael
Assistant Director
Facilities Services
Custodial Services Department
To the Cigar,
As a member of the University of Rhode Island's Waste Minimization team, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to express your concern about the university's recycling efforts in the Library and on campus in general.
My team members and I find your concern for the environment very commendable and sincerely wish that the extended community were so involved. Enhanced and effective recycling creates sure returns, seen and unseen, that benefit all of us. We hope that your letter will be another element in helping the campus to focus its attention and energy on saving our environment.
Your letter also serves to underscore the need to change perceptions campus-wide about the effectiveness and dedication of our housekeepers' recycling efforts. To date, budget constraints have prevented us from equipping our housekeepers with updated custodial carts that include the blue and green vinyl recycling bags we need to augment our standard yellow trash bags.
To meet this challenge, our staff places separate trash liners (for paper, plastic and trash) inside the yellow vinyl trash containers on their carts, working diligently to ensure that all source-separated items are not mixed with trash. Though it may not be obvious, separate bags have been also been placed in the library's big tote.
Casual observation may lead one to suppose that our housekeepers are mixing trash with recyclables. To lay this misperception to rest, Custodial Services is working with the Waste Minimization team and URI's recycling department to secure funding to procure made-to-order blue and green vinyl bags that we can attach to our custodial carts.
We have teamed with W.W. Grainger Inc. - a large industrial supply corporation - to find a manufacturer willing to design and produce these bags to our specification. We're pleased to report that the design process will get underway in the next week or so.
Since the library processes a mountain of recyclables and trash, we are also working closely with senior Rubbermaid representatives to identify and put into operation a recycling/trash tote that will address the aforementioned perception gap, and otherwise meet the library's special recycling and trash-removal needs. We hope to test one of these totes soon.
Again, thanks from all of us for your letter. It will spur the Custodial Services department to accelerate our efforts to address recycling perception issues on campus.
The Waste Minimization team is always looking for new members. Please consider joining our team! We need dedicated, resourceful students to help us meet our mandate to significantly and permanently reduce the university's waste streams.
Doug Michael
Assistant Director
Facilities Services
Custodial Services Department