{"id":57646,"date":"2019-12-11T03:15:16","date_gmt":"2019-12-11T07:15:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/?p=57646"},"modified":"2019-12-11T14:39:43","modified_gmt":"2019-12-11T18:39:43","slug":"utoledo-increases-efforts-to-reduce-waste-increase-recycling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/12_11_2019\/utoledo-increases-efforts-to-reduce-waste-increase-recycling","title":{"rendered":"UToledo Increases Efforts to Reduce Waste, Increase Recycling"},"content":{"rendered":"

The University of Toledo is adopting changes to its recycling practices to reduce waste and continue being good stewards of the environment. <\/p>\n

\u201cLike other large organizations and communities across the country, we\u2019re shifting our focus from just recycling to \u2014 first and foremost \u2014 reducing the amount of waste we produce,\u201d said Jason Toth, senior associate vice president for administration. \u201cContinuing to recycle exactly as we\u2019ve been doing for the past two or three decades is simply no longer sustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRecycling costs continue to increase due, in part, to the amount of labor it takes to sort and disburse these materials to appropriate places,\u201d said Michael Green, director of energy management for Facilities and Construction. \u201cTherefore, we\u2019re asking everyone to participate in renewed efforts to ensure we\u2019re effectively eliminating waste, and then to also recycle items properly.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cMany employees and students recycle items in the proper blue bins, but then just one person inappropriately tosses in a pop can that\u2019s half full, for instance, the contents of that entire bin ends up in the landfill due to cross-contamination,\u201d Green explained. \u201cIt\u2019s too costly to manually sort through hundreds of bins to ensure every item has been recycled appropriately.\u201d<\/p>\n

To be more environmentally responsible, UToledo is modifying its approach to recycling and urges all faculty, staff and students to assist as follows:<\/p>\n

Recycling stations<\/strong>, which promote streamlined, common area recycling, have been expanded across campuses and are in all University facilities, including residence halls, office and patient care areas. Each station contains four bins \u2014 mixed office paper, metal cans (e.g. soda cans), plastic (e.g. water bottles) and landfill (trash). Please read the label atop each bin to ensure you are tossing items into the right bin to eliminate cross-contamination of recycled items.<\/p>\n

Blue bin office recycling containers<\/strong> were removed from individual offices over the summer to promote increased use of the recycling stations in order to reduce labor and other associated costs. Please continue to recycle by using these common area recycling stations.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Cardboard recycling<\/strong> \u2013 Employees should break down small- and medium-sized boxes and place the flattened cardboard at a recycling station. Be sure to place the flattened cardboard behind the bins so foot traffic is not impeded. For large and oversized boxes, a maintenance\/custodial work order should be submitted so Environmental Services may pick up this flattened cardboard from your work area.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore you recycle, we all should focus on reducing waste first,\u201d Green noted. \u201cWays to do that include using your own beverage container instead of buying beverages in disposable cups, avoiding the use of Styrofoam containers for takeout food, and buying used or recyclable products for your residence hall or home.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf everyone on our campuses used their own washable coffee cup every day, the University could reduce our annual waste by thousands of pounds,\u201d Green said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s for only one small item that thousands of us use daily, and many of us use multiple times a day. Just imagine what we could do for the planet if we all would eliminate using other disposable products, too!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The University of Toledo is adopting changes to its recycling practices to reduce waste and continue being good stewards of the environment. \u201cLike other large organizations and communities across the country, we\u2019re shifting our focus from just recycling to \u2014 first and foremost \u2014 reducing the amount of waste we produce,\u201d said Jason Toth, senior …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":828,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57646"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/828"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57646"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57675,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57646\/revisions\/57675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}