Does recycling make economic sense and help the environment as well? I think that the answer to this question depends on where you live and the system of waste management in place, but here in Manhattan, the answer is a resounding yes.
People have heard many different ideas about this issue, so sometimes it is hard to sort through the information. Here are the details of the economics of waste management at K-State.
We have to pay $45 per ton to landfill our trash, but we get paid from $80 through $1,100 per ton for different materials when we recycle them, according to Bill Spiegel, supervisor of the KSU Recycling Facility.
Spiegel said that in a recent eight-day collection period after which all of the materials were sold to Howie’s Recycling and Trash Service on Jan. 23, K-State collected 32,654 pounds of recyclables. Landfilling these materials would have cost $734.71, but instead, K-State made $2,615.37 by recycling the materials.
Our campus came out over $3,300 ahead by recycling our waste instead of landfilling it. And, this is only by recycling around 23 percent of our waste. According to a Dec. 26, 2005, Montgomery Advertiser article by Sebastian Kitchen, about 70 percent of people’s waste could be recycled and kept from the landfill.
If we really took seriously keeping recyclables out of the landfills, our campus could make around $9,000 every week. Imagine how this money would add up and help all of the students pay less for their education in the long run.
Clearly from this data, recycling makes good economic sense in Manhattan. We all just need to start sorting our waste and putting it in the proper bins for the savings to add up. If we continue to throw recyclables in the trash, it is essentially the same as throwing money in the trash.
Source: Kansas State Collegian
By Matt DeCapo staff writer