feature story

It’s a green world right now. Everywhere one turns there is an ad or product labeled as ‘environmentally friendly’ or somehow related protecting or saving the environment. Being green is now a trend in which everyone desires to partake in, whether it is to actually help the environment or simply to follow the trend.
With this current phenomenon of saving the planet with ‘greener’ purchases, the actual practices like recycling that aide the planet the most are ignored. Recycling is an integral part of conserving natural resources and is extremely simple process. It is especially easy here on Wittenberg’s campus, where it is only a matter of placing the object in the correct bin.
On campus there are recycling bins next to every trashcan inside the buildings so students, faculty, and staff simply have to place the put the recyclable item in the blue bin. With such a simple process that takes no more effort than throwing away the item, yet for some reason it isn’t followed but rather bottles and papers are frequently still found in the trash bins.
So while the current trend is to become ‘green’ actual practices that help the earth aren’t followed. Though this problem is easy to spot on a college campus, the mentality is the same everywhere. At the University of Nebraska Medical Center, they claim that 90 percent of the trash thrown away on campus can be recycled. That is a high number but not far off from the average of what most landfill companies estimate around 70 percent of all trash can be recycled.
According to the Green Wittenberg program on campus that initiated the recycling program here beginning in 2008, the amount recycled is extremely low in comparison to amount that can be recycled. In 2008, Wittenberg recycled 8.3 percent and in the 2009 the number increased slightly to 9.5 percent. These figures are produced by the company Waste Management, who picks up the campus trash and recycling.
Wittenberg recycles less than 10 percent of its trash when anywhere from 70-90 percent of the trash can actually be recycled. For some reason there is a road block on Wittenberg’s campus when comes to recycling.
When asked about this road block, Dr. Incorvati a professor at Wittenberg and the catalyst behind the recycling program said, “It may be the teacher in me that wants to trace the issue back to lack of understanding. Some folks probably don't see that there's really a whole lot of significance in putting waste in one bin as opposed to another. ”