Cal State Long Beach is made up of a diverse and intelligent student body, with many driven young people who will surely go on to make incredible impacts in the world. Notable alumni consist of professional athletes, influential actors and the mayor of Long Beach. It comes as a surprise, then, when so many students fail to make use of the many recycle bins available to them on campus.
Is the general population at CSULB lacking in environmental knowledge, or do they simply not care?
Bottle and can receptacles are located all around the 324-acre campus and inside most buildings. Within the quad between Liberal Arts 4 and LA-3 alone, there are four recycling bins. No matter the direction a student is walking, one bin will be in their general direction.
Disappointingly, many students and faculty still practice complete disregard and their bottles and cans are carelessly thrown into traditional waste bins, especially in the classroom.
CSULB focuses extensively on sustainability efforts, with a larger goal of becoming a zero waste campus. There are programs in place for recycling cans and bottles, cardboard, batteries, paper, electronics, office supplies, furniture, food waste, metal, wood and more. Associated Students Inc. has a recycling center conveniently located on campus for community members to donate recyclable materials for California Redemption Value.
Not that recycling doesn’t always come from carelessness; it often comes from lack of education on the issue. However, with the number of available recycling outlets on campus, too many CSULB attendees are practicing carelessness.
Given the accessibility ASI and CSULB provide, there is no excuse to not move the extra five feet to put your bottle in the recycling bin. Simple changes in a single person’s lifestyle can make an incredible impact on the health of the environment and provide a positive place for future generations to prosper and succeed.
Landfills are filling up. The average person generates 4.3 pounds of waste each day, according to the Center for Sustainability & Commerce at Duke University.
There are approximately 7.4 billion people on earth and 37,430 students at CSULB, meaning our student body has the potential to create over 800,000 pounds of waste in a given week. Recycling helps reduce the amount of waste put into landfills and limits the number of landfills needed.
Care about the footprint you leave behind and care to recycle, CSULB.
Recycling is bad because:
1. Most recycling programs cost way more money than they generate, and the shortfall comes out of tax dollars.
2. Recycling processes generate more pollution and harm to the environment than if the materials had been left as simple garbage.
Also:
3. The ‘needs’ for recycling – i.e. saving trees and reducing landfill space – are predicated on myths.
4. Much of the carefully seperated materials end up in the same landfill spaces anyway. They just don’t tell you.