RecycleMania hits MCC - Sustainability Tip of the Week

RecycleMania is underway at McLennan Community College!

MCC is participating in RecycleMania from January 18 – March 28, 2009.

What is RecycleMania? RecyleMania is a friendly national competition and benchmarking effort among over 500 college and university to promote waste reduction activities to their campus communities. MCC is participating this year for the first time in the benchmarking, a less stringent competition, to help us prepare for later full competition. Some of you might remember that Baylor University was noted in the Waco Tribune Herald recently for their efforts in the 2008 RecyleMania competition. We believe MCC can best that and serve as a role model for the community in all areas of sustainability.

How can you get involved? During this Spring’s competition, our college will measure how much we can recycle in comparison with other colleges and to our amount of trash (non-recyclables). All of us play a role in this competition so we ask that you begin recycling in your office using the desk-side blue bins provided by the college. If you already have one, start putting in more than just paper. If you don’t have one, have your administrative secretary contact the Physical Plant at 299-8843 to request bins for your area. Empty your blue bins into the closest large black bin in your building.

What can you recycle? MCC Students can start recycling all major recyclables including paper, plastic, aluminum, and cardboard in the common area recycling containers. These containers will be located in hallways and other common areas and will be clearly labeled. MCC is not accepting glass at this time. The yellow dumpsters located across campus are designated as recycling dumpsters. Students can also put their recyclables in those containers. MCC will be ordering additional containers over the next three years to provide campus wide recycling for common areas. The following flier lists all acceptable materials: http://www.mclennan.edu/gogreen/Recycleable.pdf.

How else can you get involved? Stay tuned for notices answering other questions you may have about recycling on campus, including the question of glass, student/common area recycling, and the location of additional black bins. We refer you to the new MCC Sustainability web site at www.mclennan.edu/gogreen. We will also in the process of creating a blog and an email alias for all us of to share and discuss sustainability and ideas on how to implement it across campus. We welcome all of your input and help in making MCC a “greener” campus.

MCC Sustainability Committee.

Recycling Expansion at MCC

Recycling will be expanded at MCC this month to include plastics and metals. Most of the campus has been recycling paper for a number of years. You can view a list of acceptable recyclables at http://www.mclennan.edu/gogreen/Recycleable.pdf.

Last semester, the new Recycling Polity was added to the Policy Manual. You can view the PDF online at http://www.mclennan.edu/publications/policies/C-I-B.pdf.

What do you need to do?

1. If you already have a blue desk side recycle bin, you can begin to put plastics and cans in with your paper. If you want to put a logo on your bin, please contact the Physical Plant at 299-8843 to request your “Life is Green at MCC” sticker.
   
2. If you do not already have a blue desk side recycle bin, the Physical Plant will coordinate with your department to deliver the bins to your building. Have one person, likely your administrative secretary, contact the Physical Plant to tell them how many desk side containers you need delivered to your office. You do not need a new one if you already have a container, but you can request a sticker to add to one side.
   
3. Put your paper, plastic and metal products (see flier for allowable items) into your blue desk side bin. Plastic bottles and aluminum cans are NOT required to be rinsed before recycling but should be empty. Other food items should be rinsed when needed.
   
4. When it is full, empty your blue desk side bin into the large black (or blue) rolling recycling bin that is located on your floor or ground level of your building. You may also want to work within your department if a single employee or group of work studies had previously been emptying your blue desk side bins full of paper.

Additional information

• The physical plant will empty the black (or blue) rolling bins on a weekly basis into the new yellow recycling dumpsters that have been placed on campus. Help us out by calling 299-8843 if the black rolling bin is overflowing prior to its pickup.
  
• Fliers will be posted by the black (or blue) rolling bins located in each building including the list of recyclable items, the Physical Plant phone number, and any other pertinent information.
  

What you do will make a difference and will be counted!

• Between January 18 and March 28, MCC will be participating in RecycleMania! We will report the amount of material we recycle in a nationwide college and university competition. This is especially significant, since there are more 4-year institutions participating than community colleges across the nation. Way to go, MCC!
  
• In the 2008 RecycleMania campaign, the 58.6 million pounds of material recycled during RecycleMania 2008 prevented greenhouse gas emissions of 25,342 metric tons of carbon equivalent (MTCE) from entering the atmosphere. (“RecycleMania Climate Impacts” at http://www.recyclemaniacs.org/index-pop2008.htm).

If you have any questions about recycling on campus,
please contact the Physical Plant at 299-8843.