This is an interview with Adam Bensley and Milannee St. Hill from N.C. State University Waste Reduction and Recycling Team. Their job is to provide infrastructure to grant access to recycling. However, it is a shared responsibility between faculty, students, and staff to make N.C. State a greener campus.
Please check out N.C. State Recycling Website to keep up with recycling programs on campus (GoPack)! (https://recycling.ncsu.edu/about/)
If you want to get involved as a student on campus, join the Zero Waste Wolves (https://recycling.ncsu.edu/zero-waste-wolves/)
Transcript
Everyone, this is my colleague, Milannee st Hill, Lani is the outreach coordinator for waste reduction and recycling. She is our social media powerhouse, and presentation, giver extraordinare. amongst many things, she's also I know, it's a funny title. She's also instrumental for the waste diversion efforts at Carter Finley stadium. And I mean, there's so many things Lani does helping with zero waste workplace. And she's typically involved with a lot of student work. She's the guest advisor for the zero waste wolves, a student group club on campus. So she's pretty amazing. And like I said, I thought it would be beneficial to have here based on the questions that you sent. Did you also introduce yourself? Sure. I'm Adam. I'm the waste diversion coordinator. And so I tried to, you know, target different materials for diversion kind of start new programs around those materials to keep them out of the landfill, work with construction projects, for their diversion goals. And I also oversee the NC State compost facility and research cooperative, which is super exciting. It's the new facility we have. So all of the organic waste that we collect on campus, goes out to our facility at the like Wheeler field, Bob's, it's composted, and then the compost is brought back to campus. So it's a closed loop system that we have. That's really interesting. I didn't know that. Yeah, a lot of people don't we were planning on having a big open house event. But that was right when COVID hit last year. So he didn't get to do that. And that was really going to be kind of our big grand opening celebration, where we got the word out, hopefully to as many people as possible. But yeah, COVID did not allow us to do that. So people are still learning that we even exist, hopefully next
year, when things are more back to normal. Yeah, hopefully. Okay, well, I'm just gonna introduce ourselves real quick. I'm Rebaya. And this is Tanasha. And Zainab. And we all work with Dr. Goller. And the Delftia project. And we're just trying to learn a little bit more about like electronic waste recycling. So if you guys are good, we can get started with the questions. All right. So our first question was how much responsibility lies on NC State students and faculty to not only recycle their waste by recycle items responsibly, ie the specific categories of recyclable items.
I will always jump in dry. I know. It's hard to define. But I will tell you this NC State feels like it's our responsibility to provide you with the infrastructure needed to properly dispose of your waste and divert your waste and create better waste management choices. So for example, if we were talking specifically about electronics recycling, how can we as a university be mad at students for not recycling their waste, if they have no way of doing it on campus, if we're like, oh, we'll just use the Wake County convenience, like when most students don't have access to cars, or the ability to take buses, you know what I mean? So what we do as a responsibilities, we say, we're going to make sure that you have access to it and create that infrastructure, and the programs for all students, staff and faculty to recycle their electronic waste. And that's by providing a yellow electronics car outside of each the link. So everyone has access to it. By working through general like education, outreach, stuff, specific, you know, putting out billboards specific to electronics, recycling, making sure electronics recycling as part of like moving move out information like so at that point, though, it is up to students to take in that information, right. So we can provide you but the foundation to do it, and to program the infrastructure, but we do need you to do it responsibly. And so at that, we do our best, like, there's just one of me, and 45,000 plus of y'all, including students, staff and faculty, right. And so, it's definitely a shared responsibility. That I mean, and it just has to be but it's not just our group that works on this, but it's also part of like, you know, we have a variety of policies and guidelines put in place for all staff and faculty to make sure that they're disposing of waste IE electronic waste is including in this properly, our surplus property management warehouse does so much with electronics, reuse programs, as well as recycling programs and so there's a big commitment and in terms of the university to make sure this is done, but it does take in terms of like this consumer, ie you as a student to take the initiative when they have like, I don't know, a mouse or something, you know, like, it'd be like, Oh, this is broken. What do I do with it? Like taking the initiative to be like, I don't want to landfill is there another way? And then looking it up, electronics recycling and sea state and you'll get to our website and we'll tell you what to do. We could you repeat where the yellow cards are located. There's one outside every building so wherever your trash recycling compost dumpsters are, you'll find a yellow cart. And that specific for electronics recycling. We might go take pictures of that. Yeah, yeah, you got to look for the dumpster. So it's not just like oh walkway, then it's like, Where's your dumpsters are at for the buildings? And you said they're yellow? specifically? Yes. Yellow, bright yellow, the whole thing? Perfect. Thank you. So
kind of going along with the last question. And you partially answered this already. But how educated would you say the general NC State population is like students faculty alike? Meaning like, how receptive are they to the resources that NC State has provided for recycling on campus?
that's, it's hard to know that to be honest. Because we do. And on our website, if you go under Resources, like recycling to ncsu.edu go under Resources, policies and guidelines, you're going to see to like waste characterization studies. And so that's where we deep dive into our waste to landfill. And it shows like, what did students do are not just students, but all people on campus, right? Because there's a lot of us, how do they handle their waste? And what could they have done? So knowing about this data, and then looking about how much waste could have been diverted, even though we have the infrastructure, you know, the bins, the dumpsters, the programs available to do it, it's still not being done. And so that's hard. It's hard to say, I'm also we're in the middle of doing focus groups for campus, if you're interested in taking one I can send you the link is specifically geared towards students, undergraduate and graduate students, we have about 50 done so far. And it talks all about like students, what they think about, you know, waste or not think about it, and many of them are totally in it to win it all about recycling and composting. And some of them are like, I don't do it at all. I don't recycle on campus. I don't compost. I don't talk about it. I don't think about it. And so you, you see that, you know, we still have counties here in North Carolina that don't provide residential curbside recycling. It's not at their schools. It's so how can we expect everyone even in our own state not to understand what the programs and processes are if it's never been introduced to them? Right. Do we On the flip side, are there super active students and staff and faculty who are tuned into sustainability? Yes, absolutely. And you can see that through the plethora of student organizations that are dedicated, specifically to sustainability, whether that's the stewards zero waste, wolves, Isa, Climate Reality project food, I mean, on and on, and on and on, right. So we did a variety of different building types like residence halls, mixed use libraries, the the landfill dumpster, and then it got sorted. And then as an aggregate, this is what was being sent to the landfill. And so out of here, and this is out of 2019, it kind of breaks that down for you. by category, if you look under other accepted recoverable electronics, it's less than point 1% of our waste that was sent to the landfill was sent to the landfill out of, you know, out of all of this. So electronics aren't like a huge thing that we send to the landfill primarily because there are these programs For most of campus, it's not students for getting rid of electronics, right? It's departments, buildings, groups that know the rules, because we there are specific rules about electronics disposal. Now with always started to give you details, and the data needed to help us drive like your programming and outreach and education. But it's also like a given like, Okay, well, this was a single day of waste, you never really know. Right? So it's, it's important to continually look the this past year has kind of put, we haven't done any, we started, we typically do like, three to five we started the year. But for 2020 we haven't done any of the waste audits, or can we access them? Yeah, so this is the last one that was done. So this is all the data from it. 2019 We also supplied that data from 2015 because that was another whole campus way sought it and so that's really what we're trying to show you is whole campus. The ones we do during the year are generally specific buildings and we have that information but yeah, it's it's pretty it's
Yeah, I would say look at these to get any details. But electronics as part of our waste stream isn't very big, like, we don't really see it. Now how much is being on the flip side, you can also know that on our let me go back to our website about our impact, it kind of gives you an idea of what's recycled. Okay. For that we'll break that down for our past fiscal year these numbers will be updated our fiscal year runs from July 1 through June 30. So new numbers you know, we'll be collecting collecting data through June it generally takes about two months for us to get all of the data so we generally don't release this until like August September kind of timeframe where we'll update these but as you can see, we typically recycle almost 150,000 pounds of electronics you add in another 5000 for toner and printers. Batteries another 10,000 so we we tried to track everything that leaves our campus and these we know what that weight is because of surplus property management they they deal with like we collected all that it goes through them because then they decide what can be reused what needs to be scrapped what needs to be resold, because they do that they sell stuff for like, five bucks, you can buy a laptop that DHL no no longer wanted because they upgraded, right. So they they do that and they track all of that for us. And we get those weights. Same thing with things like batteries, eh, ns, I think it gets processed to bH, I don't remember. Anyway. So different groups handle different parts of what we we deem part of as electronics, right? And then they collect that data and give it to us because we're responsible for reporting that data to not only our campus NC State, but also to the state of North Carolina. But that'll kind of give you an idea of what we're actually doing, you know, for this past year, whereas the waste audit data tells you what we're doing in terms of what we're throwing away. Though, it gives us the keys into like what we're doing wrong. Now, along with electronic waste, no, not a lot. Um, for the third question,
we would like to know like, what is the future plan on expanding our reach of the Waste Reduction Program at NC State? I've been talking a lot, Adam, do
you all see why I invited Lani because she knows her stuff. So the question was, what are the plans to expand our waste? recycling reduction programs at NC State? specific to E waste or just in general. If you haven't Specifically that you will, if that'd be amazing, in general would be nice too. So I don't think we really have anything specific to E waste as far as collection expansions. You know, back in the day, before we had the yellow carts that are rebuilding our office would do like, you know, a big recycling drive, or they would tell, you know, set up in a parking lot, or wherever and say, bring your electronics to us, and they would kind of collect them all at once. So really, the advancement of that program was the yellow electronic carts at all of the buildings. And so, when did that, Lonnie, do you know?
I do you have to give me a minute on our website. But go ahead, keep talking. I'll put it in the chat when I when I find it. You're still sharing your screen. So Oh, there sorry, you can see what I'm looking at.
So yeah, there's nothing really for, for electronics that we have planned. As far as recycling and diversion in general, one of the initiatives that we have the Lani is super instrumental and is the zero waste workplace. And so what that is, it's multiple things combined into a program. One of them is upgrading central sites throughout the building. So the building has waste recycling and composting bins, all next to each other in the hallway. And then for offices, it's providing everyone with a desk side recycling bins, so fairly, you know, fairly small, smaller than what you would have in your kitchen. And then on that recycling, then there's a small mini bin for trash and then a small mini bin for compost. And so the, the occupant of the desk or the office, they put their waste in the appropriate container, and then they take it to the hallway. And they sorted themselves in the central site. And so that what that does, is that allows them to see like, Oh, my little mini bin is full already, like, what am I consuming, that has made my mini bin full, but I now have to go empty it. And they're like, oh, maybe it's a Starbucks cup. And what can I do to reduce that waste? Okay, I can bring my own cup next time I go to Starbucks. Um, so it raises the awareness that it forces them to look at their waste, and then just sort it themselves. And so by then sorting it themselves, instead of just dumping it all, in the, you know, in the trash, or just having one big trash can, it allows them, it allows for greater diversion to happen. And so that's one component of it. Adding the compost collections is another big component of it, of the zero waste workplace, and then also adding in kind of the more difficult to recycle material, like plastic film. So that would be you know, your plastic bags from the grocery store your bubble wrap, your Amazon plastic envelopes, case wrap from bottled water, or toilet paper, paper towels, stuff along those lines is considered plastic film. And if we keep them separate, and don't mix them in with everything else, because if we mix them in with the other recycling, it would contaminate the recycling, it could jam the machines at the recycling center, they don't want that stuff. But keeping it you know, separated, were able to recycle that material on its own. And so just kind of going into the building and looking and seeing what they have and what potential exists for diversion. That's kind of the main focus that we have on expanding recycling collections right now is implementing, you know, zero waste workplace throughout the campus.
In terms of like outreach and education, one thing that Adam and I have been part of is we have been able to get like a sustainability orientation developed. It is sustainability overall, but there are specific modules within it, to recycling and to composting. And that will be that's being rolled out now as part of new stuff. So all new staffing fired. It's a recommended training, it's not mandatory, but recommended that they take a sustainability orientation to let them know about what's happening on campus. This type of training is available already and reporter for all all students, staff, faculty, and there's one specific to recycling, recycling 101 all of you can take it. We typically don't focus a lot on electronics though just because it is hardly part of our waste stream. Like it's just not something that we see you know, we focus on what are the main things that we are trying to divert and that is number one food waste through composting, which is why having a compost facility and being close to campus is so important. And then number two, reducing our plastics like that's what we see is just single use plastics. And so all shapes and forms including plastic film wrap, which Adams was talking about. So that's typically what that training really focuses on, because that's our biggest need right now. It's not so much electronics.
That makes sense. Okay, our next question is, similarly, how Where do you think the general NC State population is a proper recycling techniques? essentially asking how where students are and how much knowledge they have of recycling and how to recycle properly. I think you guys talked about, I don't know if this is a state orientation. But when I came to NC State from my like, freshman orientation, I don't remember them mentioning recycling at all. Okay, so no, that Okay, that's just not me being brainwashed?
No, yeah, it's not, we would love to be part of orientation. Love it. I've only been able to be a part of one. And I've been here seven years. And that one wasn't actually geared. It was geared towards orientation leaders, the ones who do the tours, you know, so whether or not they included it, in their talks, when they're giving tours was up to them, but myself and budong, who's with the sustainability office, we were able to come in and give them that so what we do on the flip side is we offer events and presentations all year round that we host a lot for like welcome with welcome back with weight events or winter wolf take events. And, you know, like, every single time there's something we are there presenting. Now that's been virtually in years past that's in person tabling, like, depending on when you came like we used to go through tally, and there'd be all the student organizations set up and all the things were there. So it's really it's one of those things again, we're putting it out there it's just up to the students to find us, right we do our best but we can't make a student come in. Even though I think we're really fun. We get buttons and pins but we can't make
Now Okay, cuz I think especially in Tallinn, I think that the recycling, obviously not us geared but recycling in general. And tally is super easy, because everywhere I go I see like a compost, plastic cup, whatever, like the three bins. So even though I never went to the recycling office, like it was kind of like self explanatory. So I think in tally it's like really good. I don't know about the the halls and like the way I used to live in Lee Hall. So they don't really mention anything there. But tally is like tokaj with recycling. I like look at all the info like the pictures are like where to put what was Lani, Lani makes the signs. Yeah,
it's just know that that's a standard across campus tally, because of it's always based on funding this is beside the point. So they have their own types of things. But um, that's the standard standard is landfill and recycling will always be paired. So no matter where you're at on campus, you're always going to see them together. The new standard for new buildings, and renovations Composting is added to that standard. And so for new buildings, like fixable or was just opened this year, Composting is part of it throughout the building. And as we have time and budget, we're going back to older buildings and resetting it with club post which is what Adam was talking about zero waste workplace programs. So like just over this winter, we reset college natural resources. So now they have all of it but they always had landfill and recycling paired but now we're updating it to new standards. And then
Okay, what is the biggest issue when it comes to improper recycling that you wish more people were aware of?
No, no, it's not heated. It's it's just add it's, here's, here's the big one. Recycling will not solve our problems. So stop, stop buying crap. The biggest issue, people buy crap and buy crap. I mean, single use anything single use cups cups are not recyclable. They're not. It doesn't matter if it has a little symbol on it. That symbol does not mean you can recycle something that's not what it means. What does it mean? It's just a back end for manufacturers talking about the type, the category of plastic that is used in it. And even within that one category, there's an expanse of different plastics and chemical formulations that fit underneath, like what a shoe is or for is a five is. It's not for consumers. That's that's not meant for you. But people have confused that it's just been, oh, it has a symbol so I can recycle this. And that is not what that means. Recycling is specific to where you live. So what you can recycle if you live on NC State campus. It's pretty similar throughout the rest of the state, but not totally what you can recycle, there is different what I can recycle here in the town of Cary. And I'm 15 minutes from campus, right? We're about 95% 97% the same, but because of where we live, the different contracts that Each place has, and see state contracts are contracts. All of that plays a part into it, what the manufacturer their recycling center wants. So stop buying crap, this number one, you can put that in quotes. She said stop by now. But uh, knowing that just because it has a symbol doesn't mean you can recycle it. Because recycling, that's not what it means. It's all based on where you live. All of it. So you live there but versus you live 10 minutes in the city are two different things.
so you, like just touched on this and the end? But how aligned are North NC State's recycling programs with North Carolina as a state or even you know, Raleigh, Cary Chapel Hill?
They're pretty onpoint. Again, I'd say we are aligned like 9598 99%? I don't know. Depends on how I've never done the math. Um, what makes it different are based on the contracts that other people have. And I would say at NC State, what I'm proud of is that we, we look at it long term. We're in it for the long haul, consistent messaging. So if a recycling menu, material facility the material went Murph material reclamation facility recycling facility, however, you want to say it the people who like actually take it and recycle it, if they one day decide, guess what, we are now going to recycle cups. We are not changing our messaging, we are saying cups are not allowed. Why? Because we know that is not gonna last. That is they are responding to these market fluctuations that change daily, weekly, monthly, yearly. And that is not a consistent thing that we want to happen for our campus. So is it possible that in the city of Raleigh, you can recycle plastic clamshells like think food things? Yeah. But two years ago, you couldn't? And maybe next year you can and maybe So for us, it's better for us to say no. And we will always say no. Why? Because we want consistent messaging. And we want people to understand that just because you can recycle, it doesn't make it the right thing to do. The right thing to do is to avoid using purchasing those items first, bring your own, that's the right thing to do. And so that's why are we pretty much the same as everyone else. Yes. But we are. We don't, we don't follow the fluctuations. We keep it very consistent across the board. So that our messaging education people know what to throw correctly. Adam, what do you think about that?
Yeah, absolutely. And the thing I was gonna add to that, you know, a few years ago, like when I started in the office, I went to the recycling facility, and they're like, yeah, we'll take plastic cups. And I'm like, well, we don't collect plaque. We don't put on our signs that we can take plastic cups and we tell people the plastic cups shouldn't stay out of the recycling. I was like, Huh, okay. And guess what, maybe a year or so later, the recycling facility said, we can't take plastic cups anymore. So if we had told everybody Yes, we can take plastic cups and then all of a sudden a year later said Oh, no, no more cups. I mean that's already ingrained in people that they can put the toilet The cups in the recycling, and then we would have just been overwhelmed with plastic cups. And if we get, it would have been counted as contamination at the facility. And if we get too much contamination at the facility, they charge us for it. Or they could even reject our load if there's way too much contamination. So for us, it was it, it's beneficial to say we're not going to go there to temporarily accept an item and then have to change the messaging and just confuse people. So,
so recycling sort of a trend, you would say like it just based on what the consumers are doing? Or like, how do they choose? What is able to recycle? What is not? That is so the recycling facility? Don't have Bonnie?
Oh, no, we both probably have. Yeah, it's a global market. So recycling is a commodity. So all of the individual streams, like whether you're talking about clear plastic bottles, or plastic bottles with color or paper, all of that is commodity that is being sold on a global market. Right. So it is impacted by the price of fossil fuels. It's impacted for virgin plastics versus recycled. I mean, there's so much impacted other countries, ie, China, their regulations. There's a lot that goes into it. So it can be impacted greatly by things out of our control, which is why we here at NC State one and make sure that we control the messaging and keep it as consistent as possible. So that people on it, it stays clear, and we don't have to make it a trend right, even if people outside of it are. Before I move on. Adam, do you want to add anything onto that? Because I do work, of course to say,
no, yeah, I was just gonna say what Lonnie said, what, what is recyclable, technically what the recycling facility will take is, whatever that whatever they're able to sort without, you know, getting much of contamination in it, and then whatever they're able to sell. So if they can sort the cups properly, the plastic cups, and they have a market for the plastic cups, then that's different than saying, Oh, just put your cups in there. And we'll blend them and with other number one PG plastics and just kind of, kind of hide them in there. And, you know, be a little sneaky about it really is what they were kind of doing. And like Lonnie said, you know, like, China is a huge player as a as as India, in the global recycling market. And about three years ago, China said, okay, unless you're the recycling you send us is super clean and uncontaminated, not clean, like dirt. But like, if you're sending them cardboard, there shouldn't be other stuff mixed, then there shouldn't be plastic bags mixed in the cardboard. You know, unless it's like 99%, uncontaminated, we don't want it because you're sending us too much garbage. And then they have to, you know, pay to dispose of it rather than make new products out of it. So that's really where the whole global market comes in. It's whatever people can accurately sort and then sell, you know, so they have to bet to make money on it. And if they can't make money on it, they're not going to do it. You'll find certain municipalities in North Carolina and definitely South Carolina, that have said we're not taking glass in the curbside recycling anymore, because it's too expensive for them to process. We're fortunate enough here in this area where we can the facility we send our stuff to has really good technology for separating out glass, and then I think it goes to Wilson, you know, an hour away and it gets recycled right in the state. So it? Yeah, the big question is, it really all depends on what there's a market for the recycling is good for the state.
We actually North Carolina is, is kind of protected by a lot of this because we have a lot of internal manufacturers like Adam was mentioning, but not just for glass. But for all of this that operate within North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia, like we're a hub for the South East where this is occurring here. So we've been protected by a lot of these global factors. In a sense, there's of course ripple, that it's rippled across everything that we do. So we are impacted, but not as much as other communities. That's actually very interesting. But we I would say, what Adam was mentioning is spot on like what they can sort what they can sell, but there is a third piece and that is what consumers buy. Because guess what, you are not a recycler if you do not purchase recycled content because Recycling isn't just about oh, well, I'm going to take this plastic bottom and break it down into something else to do what to sit there. If somebody can't sell that to consumer, ie a consumer isn't buying it, they're gonna stop doing that. And so the consumer plays a really important piece of this, where there's a responsibility for us to participate, if you want recycling to succeed is to purchase recycled content purchase batteries that are rechargeable purchase, you know, what I mean, the purchase battery thing, items that are long, why, etc. Otherwise, as manufacturers don't see any money, and they're gonna stop? And then what's the point?
Right, I, um, I have noticed, though, with a lot of sustainable clothing, at least, that it is very, very expensive. And I think that it is actually overpriced. I don't know if that's wrong to say, but I think it's, I can, you can put the blame on the individual. But I think as a society, we value like in capitalism, you're not going to have sustainable consumer is, you just can't You can't win because the individuals can't afford $200 for one shirt, and it's so they're just overpricing it to the point that like sustainability is a classist issue now. And they should make it they, the government should put the pressure not on the individuals, but on the, you know, on the companies that have all this money to make sustainable stuff, you know, the price of stuff has gone up for years. But minimum wage doesn't go up. So they're just raising the price. And the sustainability aspect is now being pushed on to individuals. But I think they should put, they don't put any pressure on the companies. You know,
this is a huge topic that we can go into further, to circle back into everything that we've been talking about, I think to give you a bit of hope, in a very dreary world. This is why what you're doing is so important. Because yes, we're talking about the responsibility being put on the individual. But what if the individual created an organized and led their own companies and organizations and worked within these systems and changed it, right? Because all of these systems of inequality and oppression and capitalism, they're made of individuals? And yes, it's hard, because it's been there forever, it's hard to dismantle it and break it down. But with people who are in there working for this and saying, guess what, we are not going to buy these cheap t shirts to hand out, I only want my T shirts to be made from this company that uses upcycled cotton, here in North Carolina, it's you know, it's a local company using local cotton using it I mean, like, we have to make those decisions. And if you can't do it, then don't do it. If you can't do it one way, then just don't do it. Right. And it's hard, it is hard. But hopefully individuals within the system can begin to change it. So that a bit then we're seeing that shift of more companies and organizations realizing that they can be a force for good, right? they can they can do something. And that is why you're so important. When you're so important to this because you got to you got to be the change and push for the change for all the reasons that you've been saying including boycott.
So our next one is what effects have COVID had on the amount of trash produced on campus over the last year semester. Happy? Have you noticed people becoming less likely to, you know, recycle or anything like that? I know, you guys said you didn't get to do audit this year. So that might be difficult. And then you want to take it?
I'm sure. So what we've noticed is that, you know, the quantities for everything across the board have gone down. So like waste has gone down recycling has gone down composting has it gone down just because there's been less people on campus? Data Wise what we can say so our fiscal year runs from July 1 through June 30. And so, last fiscal year ending in 2020. What we saw was that we maintained the same diversion rate, as we did the year before, which is 54%. So, in granted, that's not a full fiscal year of COVID impacted, you know, time but but it is at least a few months where the university you know, really reduced operations. And so are we seeing you know, more disposable products related to personal protection equipment or protective equipment and you know, cleaning. Yes, we are we're seeing more of those. So more waste is being produced that really didn't exist before. I mean, there weren't disposable masks being, you know, widely worn before. So we're seeing those. But other than that, I don't don't have any data that shows that things are really skewing one way or another. Lonnie, what insight do you have?
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