Students, faculty and administrators are working to improve the University's recycling initiatives, but it is going to take more than a few additional plastic bins to clean up Penn's campus.
Though certain areas of campus -- like the Quadrangle and Van Pelt Library -- are located near a number of recycling bins, according to a new survey conducted by the Green Campus Partnership, the placement of recycling bins on campus may be behind a steady decline in recycling rates.
The Partnership -- a collaboration of the University's environmental groups -- has begun to tackle the issue of recycling by brainstorming with Facilities and Real Estate Services to improve both the number and location of recycling bins.
Over winter break, the organization conducted a survey of 20 buildings across campus to analyze the locations of recycling bins and determine if they are actually being used for recycling or are contaminated with trash.
While the University boasted a 28 percent recycling rate during most of the 1990s, the number has dropped to 12 percent today. The Partnership was formed in an effort to combat this trend.
The distribution of recycling and trash containers varies on a building-by-building basis, according to the survey.
In Houston Hall, for example, 68 percent of bins are for trash and 32 percent are for recycling, according to Partnership Director and College sophomore Bonnie Waring.
Because both types of bins are placed near each other in Houston Hall, "it's easier to recycle," Waring said.
Recycling facilities can also differ within a particular school or building. In College Hall there are no recycling bins in the president's office, but there is one under every desk in the Office of Undergraduate Admissions.
The survey also found that David Rittenhouse Laboratory has a better recycling system than most buildings on campus, with 55 percent of containers being used for recycling and 45 percent for trash.
According to Waring, these numbers "will help Facilities make recommendations about streamlining programs, [giving] them a unified appearance to students" while telling people how they can recycle.
Andrew Zitcer --- Facilities Services' cultural asset manager -- called efforts to encourage recycling "the underpinnings of ... a change in not just recycling ... but sustainability and moving into the 21st century with a new approach toward cultivating a sustainable [world] and good stewardship of the environment."
But the problem is far from solved, Waring says.
Noting the absence of effective recycling efforts in some buildings, she said that "the University needs to work on committing to recycling at the entire University level and handing a policy down to each individual school so that recycling can become more unified and more successful across the board."
The group will soon administer a follow-up survey to the entire campus that will "help the University figure out how to take [further] action," said Zitcer.
