US(re)Cycle or USCandal? My discoveries
By: Lindsey Hamilton ‘22
As bad as this sounds…I’m not gonna lie, I thought I was going to find a scandal…but didn’t!
Read below to follow me through my journey- from skepticism to being a little bit proud- of learning about sustainability efforts at USC.
Why I was skeptical
Going into this, I had heard rumors that USC had stopped recycling due to trade conflicts with China, where we usually send our waste to be recycled (which seems to kind of defeat the purpose with the emissions created by transport…anyways). This, paired with the disappearance of the sorting bins in the dining halls as well as a personal experience last year where I tried to recycle a cardboard box only to be told by a janitor to just put it in the landfill trash bin because it all went to the same place anyway… I feel like my skepticism was warranted.
The Discovery
So I started researching. And found that not only does USC have extensive sustainability programs, but a NAME for it too: the Sustainability 2020 Plan…which can be found in a cute little online brochure here.
The Sustainability 2020 Plan promises to divert 75% of the university’s waste from local landfills by 2020. But…divert where? The Great Pacific Garbage certainly isn’t a local landfill, and I don’t want my EVK leftovers ending up there either. “Diverting” waste, I later read, refers to recycling and composting it. I can live with that.
Read more about USC’s waste diversion program here!
Turns out, USC isn’t the only one trying to divert waste.
The city of Los Angeles has adopted a similar policy to USC’s Sustainability 2020 Plan called RecyLA, which aims to divert 90% of LA’s waste by 2025.
The problem is that new policies that went along with this initiative mandated that USC sort all waste on campus, which the university doesn’t fully have the capacity to do. The previous diversion rate of around 54% has fallen to 27% sadly. To help them with this recycling recovery, USC has employed a third party, Republic Recycling Services.
Even with a little extra help, as the numbers show, USC still has a long way to go to play catch up. But with a new president soon to be inaugurated, I have high hopes that USC will indeed be able to reach the 75% diversion goal, if not by 2020, then soon after.
A few things you can do to help USC reach that 2020 goal:
1. Be mindful of what you recycle. Trying to put soiled products like pizza boxes or food wrappers in the recycle can end up doing more harm than good. If there is just one soiled item in the recycling bin, the whole bin can end up being sent to the landfill.
2. Pay attention to your housing’s sustainability plan. Had I said something last year about the recycling bin being mixed with the landfill trash, the problem might have been fixed!
3. The usual: reduce, reuse, and recycle yourself. At the end of the day, USC’s trash is the trash that we’ve generated. Pick packing that uses as little plastic as possible, use reusable water bottles and straws, and encourage others to do the same!
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