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News

UH's recycling gone to waste?

Once profitable program lost its way under President Smith, former committee chair says

This is the first article in a four-part series examining the UH Recycling program. Tuesday, part two of this series will examine obstacles faced by the UH Recycling Program.

by RACHAEL SEELEY
The Daily Cougar

The UH Recycling program, which began in 1993 with money collected from campus sanitary napkin machines, was so successful that by 1997 the UH solid waste stream had fallen by 48 percent.

Former UH Recycling and Conservation Committee chairman Stephen Barth said committee efforts coupled with strong support from the UH administration were behind the program's early success.

"For about the first four or five years, the program was very effective because there was a great deal of support from the administration ... we actually made money," Barth said.

Recycling Committee documents show that from its inception in 1993 to its peak in 1997, the program reduced the annual volume of trash sent to landfills by 3,657,500 pounds -- roughly enough trash to fill 175 dump trucks and save the University thousands of dollars in dumping costs.

Barth, a professor in the Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management, said although the program continues, it has been stifled by a lack of administrative support.

The program was given no official budget at its inception in 1993, but former senior buyer for the UH Physical Plant Frank Colson--a recycling enthusiast--found unused funds in an unusual place.

"I asked the administration ... how much money we had to install the program and they said zero," Barth said. 

"So Frank Colson discovered some money that had been collected from the women's bathrooms -- the sanitary napkin machines -- and that was our seed money," he said. 

Sanitary napkin proceeds paid for enough bins to perform a test run of the program in a handful of campus buildings.

Securing support from the campus community was vital to the program's success, Barth said, and a special effort was made to ensure that all faculty and staff were aware of its existence and their individual roles.

The committee took a building-by-building approach to installing the program after learning that a Universitywide approach had failed twice. 

Large, blue recycling bins were placed on each floor of many UH buildings while smaller, desk-side recycling containers were provided for offices. 

Faculty and staff emptied desk-side bins into the larger bins themselves. 

"That created buy-in, that reminded people that we recycle," Barth said. 

"We would set up meetings with each department in each building and then we would go on a certain day and install the desk-side bins and the big bins and we would leave information to be passed out to everybody that told them what they could recycle and what they couldn't," Barth said.

The pilot program collected aluminum cans, computer paper and office mix and was so successful that it produced enough revenue to purchase more recycling bins and expand the program into nearly a dozen more campus buildings the following semester.

In addition, the committee kept monthly records from 1993 through 2000 detailing the volumes of each material collected, the revenue they generated, current market prices and the resulting annual reduction in landfill trips.

The program earned statewide recognition in 1994 and received a $4,300 grant from the Texas Natural Resources Conservation Committee. 

The money was used to promote campuswide recycling awareness by increasing University signage, educating the campus community and purchasing additional recycling containers. 

But the program hit a stumbling block when Colson retired and Arthur Smith, who Barth said was not enthusiastic about recycling, became UH president.

By the end of Smith's administration, the Recycling and Conservation Committee had completely dissolved. 

Recycling enthusiasm dwindled as the program became a less prominent part of campus life.

Although many of the program's recycling bins still exist, some desk-side containers are used as trash receptacles, while others have been used to capture water from leaking ceilings.
 

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