Recycling – such a simple idea. But so many people ignore recycling containers, throwing everything away. Look at the trash can in the room where you are reading this now. There is probably a 20-ounce Coca-Cola product that could have been recycled, sticking its head up in the wastebasket. Why does this happen? What is so difficult about recycling? Is it the extra few feet one may have to walk in order to recycle that pop can?
Ohio State has taken the initiative and implemented a recycling program. In every building throughout campus there are the blue containers, where both cans and bottles can be recycled. However, these bins only work when used. That responsibility falls on each individual person who drinks from a recyclable container. We at The Lantern are bothered by the sheer amount of students, faculty and staff who ignore these containers daily.
Even more disturbing is the complete lack of recycling at the favorite local watering holes. Each day, the campus-area bars produce thousands of empty beer and liquor bottles. They all end up in the trash. It must seem easier to simply chuck that empty bottle in the trash, filling Dumpster after Dumpster. However, everyone is forgetting the millions of years that beer bottle, which was used only once to deliver 12 ounces of cheap American beer to one person, will spend in a landfill.
Every weekend, off-campus parties yield similar results. Sunday and Monday morning, when walking through University District neighborhood, how many bottles and cans can be seen just thrown about the ground? And without any university or city initiatives, these bottles will face the fate of their bar bottle brothers – in the trash, for millions of years.
The university and its student representatives should pool its resources and implement a program to eliminate the production of recyclable waste. Focusing first on the bars, and working in coordination with the OSU recycling programs which already exist, this program could quickly be put into place, giving bars special containers to put all their recyclable materials.
However, most of the responsibility of effective recycling falls on the individual. Each of us must do our part for our planet and our community. So next time, when you have an empty plastic bottle, and you’re thinking about just throwing it away because it’s easier, think again. That’s millions of millions of years in a landfill. And in a time of increased patriotism, with people wondering how they can participate, do something that will really help America: Keep recyclables out of the landfill.
