The CSU East Bay Facilities Management team has adopted a single stream recycling system for garbage collection and the result is an impressive improvement despite the lack of awareness and possible miscommunication on campus.

The transition has led to a 12 percent increase in the amount of recycling; moving the volume up to 74.34 percent of the total waste in 2012 from 62.27 percent in 2010, according to the energy coordinator’s office.

“Can it be better? Yes. Do we want it to be better? Yes. And we are taking the steps to change,” said Evelyn Munoz, energy coordinator of the facilities development and operations department.

She and other administration sources interviewed say the campus should aim for recycling 90 percent of the waste generated by more than 14,000 students and faculty.

Munoz says she has been working hard to improve recycling at East Bay since she was hired five years ago. She said the strides toward creating a green and recycling friendly campus will continue and that more can be done in terms of diverting campus waste.

She said she would love to see a student-run composting program along with the existing single stream recycling system. This would divert food waste from potentially contaminating paper recyclables and more importantly divert the food waste from the landfills.

Several colleges have such programs, including UC Berkeley where there are two student-run programs; one focused on composting and another on recycling, in addition to a separate composting program through the science department, she noted.

Currently, her focus is on how to improve the use of single stream recycling on campus to prevent recyclable materials from being contaminated by other waste.

The university does not have a standardized policy for garbage collection. Instead campus facilities have designated policies for different areas.

A recent video made by ASI to inform students and staff about single stream called “Just Toss It In” encourages students and staff to throw their waste into any trashcan.

Although there have been efforts to educate students about the recycling system, the question begs to be asked: why are there separate recycling bins on campus?

The short film has a scene where someone walks towards a blue recycling bin and a black trash bin in the Student Union and chooses to throw a plastic bottle in the trash. The problem is that those recycling bins have been left there for a reason – to recycle. Yet this message tells students not to.

Single stream is only used in designated areas of the campus to dispose of garbage efficiently. Using this process, trash and recycling can be disposed of into the same container and sorted out by a waste company after it is collected. Garbage handlers and machines at the company site in San Leandro sort out the materials.

A series of conveyer belts direct the garbage into the specific bins. Newspaper and cardboard are separated from glass, and magnets grab metal materials. Everything is collected into either recyclable material or material to be disposed of as waste.

CSUEB contracted Waste Management Inc. to handle garbage and waste on campus and conduct single stream recycling. While this helps solve the recycling portion of the garbage collection, in some high-traffic areas, managing the waste remains a problem.

Based on past data, such as diversion rates of campus recycling, facilities divided the campus into different areas with varying policies for recycling and garbage collection to obtain the best results and diminish waste being diverted to landfills.

Consequently, single stream recycling is set up in classrooms, offices, and main buildings excluding the campus bookstore and the University Union.

Facilities management believes that single stream is most effective in these areas because of the high amount of paper waste and low amount of food waste. The bookstore has been successfully collecting and disposing of recyclable material using the traditional two bin system—a blue recycling bin for paper and a brown bin for trash.

The Pioneer Heights dorms are a troubling spot on campus because they have the highest percentage of waste and the lowest diversion rate. Last year their diversion rate was 36 percent, Munoz said.

The University Union, Dining Commons, Einstein Bagels and the Recreation and Wellness Center use three separate containers each to dispose of recyclables, trash and compost due to high amounts of food waste.

Moisture in food waste can lead to contamination within waste containers, making the fiber in any recyclable papers useless.  In these areas, traditional blue bins are still present to encourage students to dispose properly of their waste in either recycling or garbage to limit the amount of contamination.

“It only makes sense to do a single stream if 90 percent of what is being thrown away is recyclable…it all gets ruined if there is gooey wet stuff, contaminating paper that was good before,” said Mark Spencer, senior program manager at Stop Waste, the Alameda County Waste Management Authority and the Alameda County Source Reduction and Recycling Board.

“The possibility of someone throwing away their left over food from the dinner they just enjoyed during their night class, or someone tossing in a half empty coffee cup, which then leaks all over the contents of the trash are very high,” said Spencer. “And in either of these instances and the many other ones that could happen, the paper products in the bin that once were quality fiber for recycling become useless waste.”

The campus diversion rate is improving. In 2012 the campus collected 666 tons of garbage and recycled 1,929.71 tons, compared to 2010 when it collected 864.86 tons of garbage and recycled 1,427.65 tons, statistics showed.

Currently the biggest concern for the facilities department is how to best educate the campus about single stream and how to encourage students to do their part.  While single stream recycling is still a work in progress, and the campus is faced with the issue of contamination of recyclables in some situations, statistics prove that single stream recycling is working and making an impact in the amount of waste we collect and send to landfills each year.