Dear Editor,

As our campus and the City of Cheney continue to expand and modernize, a common problem is the lack of recycling throughout the city compared to other regions of the state. Since the majority of the population in Cheney is students, they result in a higher volume of waste and recycling. Although a trip to the recycling center proves that EWU and other local schools do participate in recycling, there needs to be a way to more effectively keep plastic, glass and paper out of garbage cans and can be discarded properly.

It is Eastern’s job to set an example for the student population and residents in Cheney for helping out with the community. The high ratio between garbage cans to recycling cans on campus shows the lack of seriousness to the recycling problem. A quick survey showed that students only recycled on campus if they were in close proximity to a recycling can, and, if they were not, they would throw it in the garbage. Recycling aluminum cans saves 95 percent of the energy used to make aluminum cans from new material. If we could eliminate the amount of recyclables from garbage cans, we could be saving a lot of energy.

A good solution that could aid in retrieving more recyclables is to distribute more blue bins around campus and giving students more opportunities to recycle. The amount of energy that would be saved would be very sufficient compared to how much we recycle on campus already. A consequence that could come from this would be more recyclables to take to the recycling center but could easily be fixed by providing volunteer hours for kids in service-learning classes. This would help the students for classes, resumes and also provide a more clean campus while reducing the amount of resources we are using up.

Sincerely,

Destiny Brito

Shelby Hubsky

Cody Hecker

Zack Coop