KU's Environmental Stewardship Program shows the university how and where to recycle

See that empty plastic bottle in the big blue bin? It's about to become a rug. And yesterday's University Daily Kansan? On its way to paper towel city, baby. That's the magic of recycling.

Recycling has existed on the KU campus in some form since the 1970s, says Jeff Severin, director of the Center for Sustainability, but an official recycling organization has only been around since the '90s. Today, that organization is the Environmental Stewardship Program, led by KU staff member Celeste Hoins. She and her crew of 14 students and three support staffers spend their days canvassing campus, collecting materials, sorting them and shipping them off across the country. It's tough work.

"Hey, it beats sitting behind a desk," says Will Weinstein, an Overland Park sophomore who's majoring in creative writing and film and who works as a recycling technician at ESP.

Weinstein and three other students have just returned from their rounds. They visited about six buildings, including Haworth Hall, home to the biological sciences division, and Hashinger Residence Hall, home to arts-minded students. They've collected dozens and dozens of those empty plastic bottles, along with wrinkled copy paper, crushed aluminum cans and flattened cardboard.

When the four students return to ESP's 5,000-square-foot facility on west campus, a huge garage door flies open and they quickly and efficiently unload the materials they've collected. Bottles go one way. Cardboard goes another. Paper is organized by type. ESP folks spend 15 hours a week sorting paper alone.

A machine that looks something like an escalator is tackling the newsprint. The papers climb up and up, ready to be compacted into a bale that will later be collected by a Topeka firm that ESP has contracted with. The revenue ESP earns from the contractor, along with student fees, helps keep the program running.

Hoins worked at ESP when she was a KU student. When her predecessor, Severin, left to lead the Center for Sustainability, Hoins decided she would like to lead the recycling program.

"It's definitely a unique field," she says. "It's marketing, economics, heavy equipment operation, working with people. It's something new every day."

The newest is the recycling of electronic equipment and surplus office furniture. Hoins is revamping the way old desks, file cabinets, computers and even KU vehicles are recycled.

The items first are offered to units at KU. A chair once used by a physics professor could be handed over to a Facilities Operations custodian - or vice versa. If no one bites, the item will go to a west campus storage facility near ESP headquarters to await a new home. Hoins says the items are sometimes donated to nonprofit organizations, but she is also trying something new: online auctions.

The ESP Web site provides a link to Purple Wave Inc., a company out of Manhattan that offers live and online auctions, allowing the public to bid on items that KU no longer needs (ESP can't sell surplus items directly to the public).

"Celeste is doing an incredible job of building the program through the development of a surplus furniture program and improvements to the scrap metal and electronic waste recycling programs," says Severin.

So with all that going on, you'd think ESP wouldn't have time for anything else. Well, you'd be wrong. Hoins says the program regularly plans special events, including recycling drop-off days in which Lawrence residents can bring their recyclables to campus for disposal. They're also gearing up for move-out day (when students in the residence halls vacate for the summer).

The good news: We can help. Hoins says you can make her job a little easier by making sure those plastic bottles are empty and their caps are removed (the caps can be recycled, too!). The more precise our sorting, the better. Don't hand over greasy pizza boxes. Remember that ESP can't handle confidential information. And if you really want to be proactive, try to waste less to begin with.

By Lauren Beatty