Recycling – a wild goose chase on Chadron’s campus

The CSC Child Development Center dedicates one day of every week to this “learning outcome” as they call it. It must be important then, if the youth of America know all about it by the age of five. And it cannot be terribly difficult if they are able to execute this action.

What am I talking about? Recycling.

Not nearly enough paper, plastic and glass recycle bins are placed around campus. When it becomes a marathon to try to locate somewhere to recycle a Naked juice bottle, I can understand why students might just trash it instead. Bins should be placed in common areas, where they can be easily located to ensure they are used.

Because college students use paper in excess, from syllabi to printed worksheets, we should take advantage of re-using extraneous sheets. Little blue paper bins are nowhere in sight. We recycle leftover issues of The Eagle, but it is a task to find a bin to dump leftovers in.

There is a lonely three-section recycle bin in the Student Center close to the Eagles Grille, where, I would think, most bottles are bought and thrown away. However, the bin isn’t within the confines of the Grille, it’s just far enough away to not be used as much as it should.

In all our attempts to “Go Green,” how could this have been overlooked? I suggest we enact a better recycling program. This may be a good focus area for Student Senate, partnering with their “trayless” water conservation movement.

I appreciate the recycle bins already on campus, but there aren’t nearly enough. The “recycle” bins placed the length of campus aren’t even for recycling!

It is completely feasible to have recycle bins at all entrances of the Student Center, on every floor of all the dorms, in academic buildings, especially close to soda machines, and paper recycling bins close to copy machines and printers.

It would be a huge improvement to the campus, and an eco-friendly step to bring in more bins. There would be an initial cost of buying bins, but they would quickly pay for themselves by saving money and resources over time.