Hello everyone! It’s Angela, the Live Green! Social Media Engagement Intern. I’m here to present November’s social media campaign: Discovering Your Role in the Waste Hierarchy. This campaign will talk about America Recycles Day, also known as National Recycling Day, happening on November 15, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and options and opportunities regarding the 4R’s: Reduce, reuse, recycle and rethink.
America Recycles Day
The first official America Recycles Day occurred on November 15, 1997, but the idea for a widely celebrated recycling day already existed. Two employees at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, Kevin Tureff and Valerie Davis, invented Texas Recycles Day, which began in 1994. The idea behind this was to have a six-week campaign to promote recycling. Eventually, Kevin and Valerie left their state jobs to start an environmental-focused public relations and advertising agency. They had the idea to transform Texas Recycles Day into America Recycles Day. They pitched the idea at the National Recycling Coalition’s (NRC’s) Congress, and it has been a celebration ever since then. To learn more about the history of America Recycles Day, go to recycle.com.
On America Recycles Day, the (EPA) recognizes how important recycling is, as it greatly contributes to the environment’s protection and safety. Recycling in America has come a long way. In fact, the recycling rate has increased from less that seven percent in 1960 to 32 percent currently (epa.gov). This is a significant jump, but there is still plenty of opportunity to grow. The EPA encourages Americans to recycle not just on America Recycles Day, but all year long. To learn more about how to recycle correctly, the benefits of recycling and all the other ways recycling contributes to a better environment, visit the America Recycles Day page on the EPA website.
Waste Management Hierarchy
Along with recycling, there are so many other ways to keep waste out of the landfill. The EPA has developed the non-hazardous materials and a waste management hierarchy to represent that there is not just one, but rather various approaches to waste management to manage all materials and waste streams. This hierarchy ranks these waste management strategies from most to least environmentally preferred and emphasizes reducing, reusing, recycling and composting. These strategies are source reduction and reuse, recycling and composting, energy recovery and treatment and disposal. As well as assisting in reducing and diverting waste from landfills, these strategies also assist in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
Source Reduction refers to reducing waste at its source. Simply making the decision to reduce or eliminate demand for an item so that there is less or no waste to manage. Reuse also plays a huge role in reducing waste through repurposing, upcycling or donation. Recycling is collecting items that would otherwise become waste, then sorting and processing those items into raw materials, which eventually get turned into new products. Composting, similar to recycling, processes organic matter – food scraps, yard trimmings, etc., into a new organic product. Energy Recovery converts non-recyclable waste into heat, electricity or fuel that can be used to augment business or community energy portfolios. Treatment focuses on decreasing the volume and toxicity of waste and includes physical options, such as shredding, chemical options, such as incineration and biological options such as anaerobic digestors. Disposal refers most often to landfilling.
Currently, the EPA is in the process of reviewing the hierarchy to see what adjustments should be applied to be more representative of today’s waste. This will be done by looking at new information and new data. To learn more about this and the Waste Management Hierarchy, visit the Sustainable Materials Management: Non-Hazardous Materials and Waste Management Hierarchy page on the EPA website.
Sustainable Materials Management
There is another system in development that complements the Waste Management Hierarchy and represents an enhanced consideration of waste, and that is called sustainable materials management (SMM).
According to the EPA, “Sustainable materials management is a systematic approach to using and reusing materials more productively over their entire life cycles. It represents a change in how our society thinks about the use of natural resources and enviromental protection.” With U.S. and global consumption increased significantly within the past century, a more productive way of using materials is vital for the health and well-being of the environment.
SMM has a life-cycle perspective with five major stages: Materials extraction, manufacturing, distribution, usage and end-of-life management. States throughout the U.S. are considering “best-fit” opportunities for incorporating SMM or components of SMM into their solid waste systems. These states include the state of Iowa, whose driving vision is the application and integration of SMM “to better protect public health and safety and the environment.”
To learn more about SMM, visit the the Sustainable Materials Management page on the EPA website.
The 4R’s
There are four R’s when it comes to waste management: Reduce, reuse, recycle and rethink. Practicing these four concepts is key in reducing our individual trashprint and achieving an effective waste minimization/zero waste program. At Iowa State University, we are especially committed to focusing on the implementation of the 4Rs, as well as offering opportunities for the campus community to engage with them. Dedication to that commitment is highlighted below.
Reduce
The first R is reduce. One of the initiatives ISU has incorporated related to waste reduction that has been especially successful is ISU Dining’s implementation of trayless dining in all residential dining facilities. Trayless dining was first introduced in the Seasons dining area. When compared to facilities still using trays, there was nearly a 50% food waste reduction with trayless dining and much less cost, leading to cross-campus adoption. Another initiative of note is ISU’s reduction of waste through partnerships with Information Technology Services (ITS) and a number of campus departments, related to offering opportunities related to paperless operations from purchasing, to submitting student organization financial paperwork, to reserving room and spaces.
Reuse
The next R is reuse, and ISU has taken the advantage of many opportunities for reuse. One of those is the university’s ISU Surplus Program – offering an outlet for items not needed by one campus department to be offered to other departments rather than considered as waste. This results in over $250,000 of reusable assets being reused in university operations on a yearly basis. ISU Surplus items are also offered for sale to students, faculty, staff and the general public one day a week. There are also events throughout the year that offer opportunities for reuse. For example, the Department of Residence’s Move Out Donation Program, providing the option for unneeded reusable items to be collected and redistributed to community shelters, food banks and non-profit organizations. There are also other campus events, such as community clothing and supplies drives and used textbook collections. ISU Dining also partners with Food at First, to offer the donation of prepackaged “day old” cafe items and leftover catering items toward ensuring food security in the Ames community. The TreeCycle program also offers a unique reuse application at Iowa State University through turning fallen and removed campus trees into furniture and other wood products for campus use, as well as being available for student projects. Another big event that the ISU Office of Sustainability and City of Ames partner up for is Rummage RAMPage, a community sale designed to keep unneeded but reusable items out of the landfill.
Recycle
The third R is recycle. Iowa State has most distinctly committed to this through campus-wide single stream recycling, which allows all recyclables – glass, metal, plastic and paper to be placed together in recycling bins instead of sorting them individually. There is also the corrugated cardboard recycling program, which is another option to recycle cardboard so it does not take up space by including it in single stream recycling bins. Another opportunity provided by the university is recycling for items specifically connected to campus operations, including electronics, chemicals, rechargable batteries, lightbulbs, toner cartridges, lab equipment, cell phones, confidential documents and demolition and construction waste. With the success of the solar-powered trash compactors on campus, to assist with litter reduction, ISU added Big Belly solar-powered recycling compactors, which are located throughout campus outdoor spaces. Each compactor’s contents are digitally monitored, allowing up to five times more trash to be collected in comparison to previous receptables – decreasing labor costs and trash pickup emissions.
Rethink
The last R is rethink. Being able to rethink our actions and assess if they are sustainable is a step in the right direction regarding waste reduction. Through a number of resources and tools, including the Live Green! Monthly newsletter, monthly social media campaigns (like this month), event networking and connections and all of the programs and initiatives noted above, every student, faculty and staff can start on their own 4Rs journey now! Just start at reduce and work through all of the 4R’s. Being aware of what the university has in place and how to utilize it for your own success empowers us all toward ensuring effective waste management toward a zero waste campus community.
Iowa State University’s Recycling and Special Events Coordinator
To ensure the opportunity and success of the 4R’s on the Iowa State campus, the University has a dedicated position. Steve Kohtz is the Recycling Services Coordinator and Special Events Coordinator for ISU. He is in charge of leading waste management and reduction efforts and also wears the hat of Special Events Coordinator, partnering with a campus team to ensure a rich diversity of campus engagement opportunities for students, faculty and staff. Fun fact! Kohtz is a former member of the Live Green! Leadership Team, serving as Sustainability Coordinator, during his time as a graduate student at Iowa State University. He returned to ISU in June 2022 and is one of the sustainability champtions across campus vital to the work of the Office of Sustainability.
Kohtz says he’s an “educator at heart.” He loves helping students, faculty and staff understand and learn about recycling. Since he is passionate about teaching people all about recycling and the 4R’s, he really likes tabling events and any opportunity for discussion and connection. He enjoys working with people and answering all different kinds of questions.
Kohtz is especially committed to an empowered campus community in consideration of ensuring everyone’s recycing efforts are effective and impactful. He notes the enthusiasm in recycling can sometimes become “wishful recycling” and unfortunately result in items being placed into recycling bins that “look” like they should be recyclable due to the materials they are made from or that they have the “chasing arrows” recycling symbol included on them. However, this “wishful thinking” can lead to contamination of recycling bins causing the entirety of the bin’s contents to be put into waste. Kohtz understands knowing what and how to recycle can be challenging and confusing, which has lead to his current recycling campaign, “Boss Your Toss.”
The focus of the “Boss Your Toss” campaign is to be informed on how to recycle without contamination – being “the boss of your toss”. To assist students, faculty and staff in “bossing”, Kohtz is undertaking a campus-wide research project during the 2023-2024 academic year – made possible through funding provided by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources Solid Waste Alternatives Program. In completing his research, Kohtz is focusing on campus recycling receptacle signage and what prompts and messaging are most effective in ensuring “clean” recycling. Toward that determination, he has sectioned the campus into three “test” segments, each with different signage information and ,throughout the year, will monitor contamination levels within each of the segments, as well as observing user interactions. His goal is to have campus “refitted” with the new messaging to kick-off the 2024-2025 academic year. Read more about Kohtz’s research in the October 19 ISU Daily article.
With November here, Kohtz is especially excited to celebrate America Recycles Day. He believes that America Recycles Day is one focused on individual action, encouraging individuals to reduce, reuse, recycle, rethink and repurpose throughout every aspect of their lives. Every action can make a difference and Kohtz shared some fun facts about recycling, occuring “beyond the bin”, from the EPA.
- One recycled aluminum soda can saves enough energy (by not having to power the mining of material, distillation of metal and manufacturing a new can) to power a TV for three hours. A case of soda cans will save three days of power.
- One recycled glass jar saves enough energy to power a computer for 25 minutes.
- One recycled plastic bottle saves enough energy to power a 60-watt bulb for three hours.
There are some exciting things happening in Iowa and at Iowa State University in celebrating America Recycles Day!
10 a.m.
- Kohtz joins fellow board members of the Iowa Recycling Association for Governor Kim Reynolds’ signing of a proclamation denoting America Recycles Day in Iowa.
1 – 3 p.m.
- Kohtz will be tabling under the University Library awning to talk about all things recycling as well as opportunities related to all of the 4R’s.
8 a.m. – 5 p.m.
- A yard sign parade will be set up along the north side of the Central Campus sidewalk featuring a variety of recycling facts.
- Students, faculty and staff are encouraged to show their ideas on reusing recycled materials in their daily lives by creating a social media announcement and tagging Recycling Services (@iowastaterecycles on Instagram) – and be entered into a drawing for a five-piece set of recycled storage totes.
- Take a “mug shot” of yourself using your reusable water bottle or coffee mug and post it on social media tagging Recycling Services (@iowastaterecycles on Instagram) for a chance to win a Cyclone Refillable Stanley Water Bottle.
America Recycles day is dedicated to celebrating the efforts of recycling; however Kohtz reminds that the decisions regarding how you “Boss Your Toss,” occur every day. He invites all students, faculty and staff to join the celebration on November 15 and and challenges us to keep the momentum going year round. Visit the ISU Recycling Services website for more information, ideas and opportunities to spark and sustain your personal “Boss Your Toss” momentum.
What’s Coming Up
December’s social media campaign is based on the theme, Volunteering: The Gift That Keeps on Giving. Next month’s campaign will discuss the background of volunteerism, the importance of volunteering and different volunteer efforts and opportunities to help you find the gifts you can give.
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