Clothing was shared among The Salvation Army and Purple Heart Services Foundation. These items were then made available to charitable organizations and scavenging by the general public. Unfortunately, the heavy rains on the last day of Move-Out really put a damper on the scavenging rate this year. The one item that remains the toughest challenge for waste management staff is carpets. Many students dispose of their room carpets and there is no way to recycle them at this point.
Staff encourage students to store their carpets for use the following year.
Last year, UM recycled 85 tons of mixed containers. The majority of this material came from Housing's residence halls and Dining Services. These plastics cool at different temperatures. The reprocessing stage is disrupted if the two are mixed together. End markets for other plastics have not yet been developed in Michigan, and they are not handled by our current recycling processor.