After the weekend’s Homecoming activities are over, the Recycling and Refuse department oversees Ohio University’s efforts to keep its carbon footprint in check.
After the Homecoming Parade, floats are required to be sent to the parking lot at Ping Center, where both student volunteers and Campus Recycling staff disassemble them.
“For the last decade Ohio University Campus Recycling has been a leader in green Homecoming by partnering with the Homecoming Parade committee to deconstruct floats and recycle or donate the salvageable materials,” said Andrew Ladd, OU’s Recycling and Refuse manager, in an email.
OU donates wood, chicken wire and other building materials from floats to organizations such as nonprofit home improvement stores and donation centers that sell new and gently used building materials and appliances, Ladd said.
The university has been following both a Sustainability Plan and a Climate Action Plan, which were set in motion by OU President Roderick McDavis in 2011 and 2013, respectively, in order to make campus more eco-friendly.
Recycling containers placed throughout campus are in every office, academic building and residence hall.
“Recycling deserts are an incredibly important issue on campus, one that the school has addressed swiftly and thoroughly. I simply wish that they could face their investments with a similarly swift and ‘sustainable’ attitude,” said Caitlyn McDaniel, a junior studying global studies: war and peace and president of the Sierra Student Coalition.
OU has a goal of keeping an 80 percent recycling rate by 2016, but the university has already taken several steps to become more efficient, including recycling the Homecoming Parade’s floats.
The majority of OU’s recycling is done through the Athens County Recycling Facility in Chauncey. The university recycles more than 3,000 tons of material a year.
Recycling has become a “norm” on campus, with 90 percent of surveyed students reporting that they recycle “some or all of the time,” Ladd said.
On average, the university saves $180,000 a year by recycling. Recycled materials are also sold as a way to create revenue such as white office paper, which can go for as high as $100 per ton.
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