To the Editor:
I cannot possibly be the only person on campus to notice the fancy new recycling cans outside the new Biotechnology Center. In fact, someone else must have noticed them, and used them, because there were things inside them.
When I first saw the new cans, I noticed they looked similar to the nearby trash cans but had three different, clearly labeled slots for trash, containers, and paper. However, upon closer inspection, I saw that all three slots were filled with garbage. I would like to ask the campus community, why it is so hard to recycle when the opportunity is right in front of you?
It is true that there are many trash receptacles around campus, inside and outside of buildings. Most of the time recyclable materials are placed in them as well as trash. Ecologic does a yearly dumpster dive to prove this. It is also true that there are not as many recycling bins as trash cans, and many recycling bins on campus are out of the way or are not clearly labeled. Yet in those cases where there are recycling bins nearby, do people take care to recycle? These new cans near the Biotech Center demonstrate that even if trash and recyclables can be disposed of in the exact same location, in clearly labeled slots, people do not necessarily do the obvious thing and sort what they are throwing out. I doubt that people are so ignorant as to not know what recycling is and how to sort things. This is RPI, and everyone here is intelligent enough to know that bottles and cans go in the slot labeled “containers.”
I would like to see more recycling bins around campus so that this can be accomplished. Until there are more cans like the ones outside the Biotechnology Building, people may have to take a few extra steps to get to an appropriate receptacle for their recyclables. In the case of the new three-way cans, I hope that when I walk by on my way to class they are filled with trash, bottles and cans, and paper in their appropriate slots.
Danielle Kumpulanian
PHYS ’06
