Although UTRGV has recycling bins on both campuses, the Edinburg campus has a recycling program while the Brownsville campus is looking into starting one.
Oscar Villarreal, director of Campus Facilities Operations in Edinburg, said there is a recycling program on campus. Plastic, cardboard, aluminum, oil, antifreeze and metals are the materials that are collected to be recycled.
“The grounds and the custodial [staff] are the ones running most of the recycling program,” Villarreal said.
The recyclables placed in bins that are found across campus are picked by the custodians and place them into large containers located behind the Facilities is located. Whenever those containers are full, Facilities call the City of Edinburg and City of McAllen to pick them up.
“They don’t charge us for it because what they do is they provide this for us free of charge,” said Carlos Chavez, assistant director of Campus Facilities Operations. “All I need to do is … call them and let them know when it’s full.”
The city then picks up the containers and then returns them empty.
Villarreal said despite the campus growing in the last 10 years , the recycling program has been able to eliminate equivalently the same volume of about 15 trash dumpsters that would have been placed on campus.
“Dollarwise, we’re saving somewhere between $15,000 to $20,000 a year because we’re recycling,” he said.
If departments on the Edinburg campus need recycling bins, they can call Facilities.
“They can call me directly,” Chavez said. “I’m the one directly in charge of it. I’m the one who gets those bins. I’m the one who organizes, who’s going to pick them up, where they’re going to go and so on and so forth.”
The Rider took an unofficial count of recycling bins on both campuses and found 112 in Edinburg and 61 in Brownsville.
Chief Sustainability Officer Marianella Q. Franklin said recycling is expensive and should be a last resort.
“The first thing we need to be doing is reducing the amount of waste we produce,” she said. “Encouraging our students, staff and faculty on campus to really consider reducing the amount of waste that’s produced is before you even consider recycling.”
She emphasized the importance of students and faculty pushing to get policies put in place for the university to be more eco-friendly.
“I tell everyone if you’re really passionate about recycling, put recycling bins in your offices and classrooms, create a recycling team,” Franklin said. “There are buildings on this campus where there are recycling teams and I can share one of them is the IT2 building.”
She said all the departments in that building have a recycling team member and set up a recycling station in their lounge. At the end of the week, they determine who is going to take the recyclables to their respective city recycling center.
Abraham Hernandez, director of Campus Facilities Operations for Brownsville and Harlingen, said there is no recycling on either of these campuses.
“They stopped many years ago,” Hernandez said. “I believe it was with the City of Brownsville and they would have a container here on campus and … I think they would only take paper and cardboard. That was quite a while ago.”
The director said they met with a recycling company for a possible recycling program to be implemented on the Brownsville campus, but it would depend on the cost.
“We’ve already met with a recycling company,” Hernandez said. “We are putting a cost together to implement a recycling program. They’ve already visited with us on campus to look at possible placement of recycling containers, so all I’m waiting to get from them is a cost so I can see how we can fund this initiative.”
Depending on numbers and funding, he hopes to have the program started in January.
With that program, recyclable items would include paper, cardboard, newspapers, magazines, books, boxes, cartons, plastic, jugs, metal, aluminum cans and tin cans. Non-recyclable items would be glass, organic waste, Styrofoam and electronic accessories.
Hernandez said the contractors for the possible program understand there will be non-recyclable items placed in the bins and they would sort out the non-recyclables from the bins.
“What they told me is they actually go through all the recycled items that we submit and they’ll throw out the items that are not recyclable,” he said. “So, it doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll lose the batch if you got items in there that shouldn’t be in there. Now, of course, we don’t want to make a habit of that. We do want to place only recyclable items in there.”
If the program were to be initiated, recycling bins would be placed in strategic locations throughout campus and be picked up by the custodial department. He said his custodial department could color code trash bags.
“Maybe a blue bag may be recycled and a regular black bag or white bag may be trash, so that when they go around picking up all the trash cans, they know what bags need to go to which dumpster,” Hernandez said. “Now, depending on the location we select, the dumpster for recyclables can be picked up anywhere from one to six times a week, depending on how much trash we generate.”
Asked about additional plans for an eco-friendlier campus, he replied the program was a start and from there they can look at other items.
“It’s been a long time coming, so we’re hoping we can initiate this and get it going,” Hernandez said. “I have a lot of support from my [Associate Vice President for Facilities Planning & Operations] Marta Salinas-Hovar, so I think once we have the numbers presented, I think we’re going to try and figure out a way to get it going.”
Victoria Lopez, a pre-nursing junior, said she recycles plastic bottles and bags, cans, cardboard and boxes.
Lopez said she does not recycle on campus because it is her first semester at UTRGV and has not looked for bins around school but said the university could advertise recycling more at events or posters across campus and even in bathrooms.
“That would be helpful,” she said.
Suzanne El-Haj, an officer in the Environmental Awareness Club, said the organization has been working for 10 years to get a green fund at UTRGV.
“That is something that is in all UT institutions, except UTRGV,” El-Haj said. “We’re the only UT school that does not have a green fund or a green fee.”
The green fund essentially is funding for sustainable initiatives on campus. This would help fund training for individuals to sort out recyclables and pay individuals to pick up bins and take them to recycling centers.
“I think we’re a large institution,” El-Haj said. “We can have an impact on the [Rio Grande] Valley and I think people will follow our footsteps.”
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