Discarded waste spreads throughout classrooms, lecture halls, bathrooms and computer labs mostly packaging and bottles from vending machines. Junk food easily silences an incessantly snarling stomach. The rubbish is left behind as easily as its contents were consumed. He tilts a desk on its end and candy wrappers, chip bags and pop bottles plummet to the floor. Nearly 400 pounds of garbage, dirt and grime are excavated from Arntzen Hall and the Environmental Studies buildings each weeknight, Anderson said.
Recyclable material makes up a lot of the garbage.
If custodians took the time to weed out recyclable material their jobs would take twice as long, Anderson said. The Recycle Center, in effort to pinpoint student and faculty waste habits, conducted an analysis measuring what type and how much trash is thrown away. The center selected one bag each day for one week from the piles of trash bags outside Old Main and Humanities, Environmental Studies and Arntzen Hall, Miller Hall and the Fine Arts buildings. They sorted and measured the contents, concluding that 41 percent of the waste produced could be recycled. Ideally, the course would teach students the essence of recycling and demonstrate what can be thrown in the garbage without remorse, he said.