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Recycling Education

Recycling, reducing consumption, and reusing resources are the best way to reduce our demand for new resources. U Sustain is working to decrease the demand for new resources, while recycling and reusing as much as possible.

Container Recycling

Union College recently expanded its recycling program, and recycling facilities are readily available in every area of the campus.

Blue bins with a single, round hole are available to collect plastic, aluminum, and glass containers.

Every year, container recycling at Union helps to collect over 150,000 containers and several tons of aluminum, plastic, and glass. Recycling these materials helps to save energy and reduce the demand for virgin materials.

Paper Recycling

Union College recently expanded its paper recycling program to every residence hall, academic, and administrative building on campus. The program accepts clean paper products, including copy paper, lined paper, and newsprint. Unfortunately, the program does not accept paper such as glossy magazines, tissue paper, or cardboard, such as cereal boxes or corrugated cardboard. The program is projected to accept 90 tons of paper every year, helping to reduce the flow of reusable resources to landfills.

To participate, find the rectangular blue bins around the campus and drop off your paper for collection.

To Expand Recycling Efforts

Needed: Student volunteers to assist in picking up recycling when the college’s employee is not in. There is only one person assigned to this task by Union and it would increase our recycling by a lot if we had some student help! If interested, contact Terry Miltner or Katie Pandolfo

Battery Recycling

Battery recycling at Union is being expanded. The college will collect all of your battery products, so that they can be properly disposed of or recycled. Bring your used batteries to Facilities Services for safe disposal.

Ink Cartridges

Most large print cartridges for copiers can simply be sent back to the distributor at no charge, but smaller cartridges can be refilled or recycled by bringing them to the College Bookstore.

Donating Useable Materials

Union College began a huge recycling initiative to recycle materials students no longer need after graduation. Truckloads of materials have been donated to the community, including clothing, electronics, and furniture. Residential Life works with the entire Facilities staff to organize the pick-up, bringing goods from the residence hall to the community.

Recycling Of-Campus

If you have a car, drive your recyclables over to Hattie & Devine, our collections center. Drive down Seward, make a right onto Nott St., and the first left onto Devine St. It is located on that block. If you don’t have a car, you can contact Facilities by phone or online through a work order and get your recycling picked up!

Getting a bin for your Room or Office

To get a small blue bin for your room or office, contact facilities. The bins are limited in number, so preference may be given to those without recycling nearby or high-use areas.

Contamination is a Problem!

Contamination is the main problem associated with recycling - for when non-recyclable materials are placed in a recycling bin the recycling potential of the total material is reduced. When all materials, recyclable and non-recyclable, are collected and emptied into recycling trucks - they then contaminate an entire truckload! So please think twice about where you throw away the remains of your lunch and avoid putting soiled paper products, such as those covered in oil or food waste, in recycling bins. By making this collective effort, the recycling output for our campus can be increased."

Recycling Statistics

Glass
  • Recycling one glass bottle saves enough energy to light a 100-watt light bulb for four hours.
  • Glass never wears our and can be recycled over and over again. Most bottles and jars contain at least 25% recycled glass.

    Aluminum
  • One recycled aluminum can saves enough electricity to run a television for three hours.
  • One can equals the amount of energy a can half-full of gasoline would produce. A recycled six-pack of cans could save enough energy to drive a car five miles.
  • An aluminum can can return to the shelf as new within 90 days after collection, re-melting, rolling, manufacturing and distribution. This means that consumers could purchase the same recycled can from a grocer’s shelf every 23 weeks or four times a year.

    Paper
  • Every ton of recycled paper saves about four barrels of oil, 4200 kilowatt hours of energy and enough electricity to heat and air-condition the average North American home for about six months.
  • Americans discard the equivalent of more than 30 million trees in newsprint alone each year. They also throw away 4 million tons of office paper every year which is enough to build a twelve foot high wall of paper from New York to California.
  • Recycling one stack of newspapers about six feet tall saves a tree about 35 feet tall. Recycling a ton of paper saves 17 trees.
  • Recycling half of the world’s paper would free 20 million acres of forest.

    Plastic
  • Americans use four million plastic bottles every hour although only one bottle out of every four is recycled.
  • When buried (like in the case of land fills), some plastics may last up to 700 years. This is due to the decomposition inhibitors added by manufacturers.

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    U Sustain seeks to promote sustainability initiatives and educate the campus community about ways to live, work, and enjoy Union in the most environmentally friendly and sustainable ways possible.

     

    Academics
    In an age of pressing environmental concerns, the government, businesses, and universities need graduates that understand basic environmental concerns and solutions. By incorporating environmental and sustainability education, we empower our students to participate in and strengthen our changing society.

    Recycling
    Everything we purchase, use, throw away, or recycle has an impact. U Sustain seeks to help you diminish or eliminate that impact as much as possible through recycling, reduction, and reuse.

    Energy
    Energy is an important component of sustainability and encompasses the electricity that keeps the lights on and the gas that keeps us warm in the blustery Schenectady winter. Knowledge about reducing our energy, and, in turn, our carbon footprint, can enable us all to make a difference.

    Food
    One way we can all make a difference is by being conscious of what we eat and how we eat it. U Sustain seeks to help us all lower our environmental impact by eating local and organic, buying fair trade, using less packaging, and making vegetarian options appealing.

    Transportation
    Union is a residential, walkable campus, but U Sustain is working on ways to help you get around Union and the greater Schenectady area comfortably, while keeping the environment in mind.