Spring Break
SJSU promotes recycling despite challenges
Mark Aspillera
Issue date: 11/15/07 Section: Student Life
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Today is SJSU Recycles Day, an occasion sponsored and introduced by the Environmental Resource Center and environmental club this year.
The SJSU facilities management Web site says that the campus has a waste diversion of 56 percent. The site says that recycling services on campus are in accordance with AB75, a 1999 state law that requires state agencies and "large state facilities" to divert 50 percent of their solid waste from landfill.
Campus policy cannot follow students home and off campus, however. Each city maintains its own recycling system dictating what can and cannot be recycled according to the SJSU-based Center for the Development of Recycling, who have a list of recycling policies for cities in Santa Clara county.
Some of the items that San Jose accepts for recycling are glass, cans and cartons, paper and cardboard, Polystyrene, clothing and metals like aluminum foil and empty aerosol cans, according to the city Web site. Materials like batteries and automotive fluids, which contain hazardous materials, must be recycled at drop-off points in the city.
One student was not sure about the recycling system where she lived but said she received recycling bins anyway.
"They just dropped off these big bins one day," said Mandy Wintle, a child development graduate student. She said she has recycled at home ever since.
Poom Lowsitisukdi, a senior chemistry major and Japantown resident, said recycling in San Jose is easy.
On Oct. 31, the San Jose City Council made a decision to have 75 percent "waste diversion," changing the destination of waste originally bound for landfill, by 2013.
San Jose currently maintains a waste-diversion rate of 62 percent according to City Hall.
Lowsitisukdi said he does not have to separate his recyclables into smaller constituencies such as glass bottles, plastics and paper. He said he and his roommates need to use only a single bin for all their recyclables.
Recycling on campus is more difficult, he said.
The SJSU facilities management Web site says that the campus has a waste diversion of 56 percent. The site says that recycling services on campus are in accordance with AB75, a 1999 state law that requires state agencies and "large state facilities" to divert 50 percent of their solid waste from landfill.
Campus policy cannot follow students home and off campus, however. Each city maintains its own recycling system dictating what can and cannot be recycled according to the SJSU-based Center for the Development of Recycling, who have a list of recycling policies for cities in Santa Clara county.
Some of the items that San Jose accepts for recycling are glass, cans and cartons, paper and cardboard, Polystyrene, clothing and metals like aluminum foil and empty aerosol cans, according to the city Web site. Materials like batteries and automotive fluids, which contain hazardous materials, must be recycled at drop-off points in the city.
One student was not sure about the recycling system where she lived but said she received recycling bins anyway.
"They just dropped off these big bins one day," said Mandy Wintle, a child development graduate student. She said she has recycled at home ever since.
Poom Lowsitisukdi, a senior chemistry major and Japantown resident, said recycling in San Jose is easy.
On Oct. 31, the San Jose City Council made a decision to have 75 percent "waste diversion," changing the destination of waste originally bound for landfill, by 2013.
San Jose currently maintains a waste-diversion rate of 62 percent according to City Hall.
Lowsitisukdi said he does not have to separate his recyclables into smaller constituencies such as glass bottles, plastics and paper. He said he and his roommates need to use only a single bin for all their recyclables.
Recycling on campus is more difficult, he said.
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