"Waste"ing Away...

This semester, the Green Team at Southwestern has been learning a lot about what happens to trashed items when they get thrown into the garbage can or recycling bin. "Our society really takes trash for granted. Many people assume that items just magically disappear once we throw them into the nearest dumpster. I am trying to educate myself and our students that that is not the case," says Jason Speegle, Green Team Director.

So far this semester, Green Team students have toured the local Cowley County landfill and transfer station, the Winfield Recycling and Composting facilities and recently took part in a campus waste audit. At the transfer station, the group learned that most of stuff that we throw in the dumpster is hauled to a landfill in Harper County, 50 miles to the west of Winfield. Tons and tons of residential waste from homes and businesses in Cowley County is transferred to the Harper County landfill and buried in the ground. Unfortunately, very few of the items decompose in current landfill structures, due to the way they are designed. According to one of the workers at the Cowley County Landfill, even though the residential landfill closed 30 years ago, if someone took a shovel to the place where the trash was buried, you could "still read the newspapers" after all this time.

The group had the opportunity to witness a load of "trash" from a local retailer. As the truck was dumped, the students noticed never worn coats and never been used products mixed in with the other trash, much of which could have been recycled, composted or donated to charity. "I hope it was an eye-opener for the students. I certainly was for me," says Speegle.

Winfield is fortunate to have local composting and recycling programs. According to the EPA, only around 9,000 communities in the nation have local recycling programs and only 3,000 communities have composting programs. Winfield is blessed to have both. The Winfield composting program is free, both to dispose of compostable materials and residents can receive the compost and wood chips free of charge. The recycling program does have a cost to residents of Winfield, but it is a minimal $3 per month added on to monthly trash service fees. Kevin Neighbors, Sanitation Supervisor for the City of Winfield came and taught SC students about the programs offered by the City of Winfield and he then led a group of students on a tour of the compost and recycling facilities.

On February 27, several members of the Frito-Lay Green Team from the Frito-Lay plant in Topeka came to Southwestern and led the Green Team students through a campus waste audit. "If we are to minimize the amount of waste that our campus generates, then it is important to know what is being thrown away," says Speegle. The results of the waste audit are not yet calculated, but a large percentage of the garbage that was sifted through was materials that can already be recycled at Southwestern. "We need to do a better job of educating our campus community about what we can recycle and why it is important." Frito-Lay in Topeka has been able to achieve over 99% landfill diversion.