I live at 252 L…

Delta Theta Sigma Recycling Program

live at 252 Langdon Street, which is the Delta Theta Sigma Fraternity house.  In this house we have 28 people that inhabit it and coexist with each other in harmony.  When Peter assigned the sustainability project I thought about what I wanted to accomplish and I decided I wanted to incorporate my fraternity house with this project. I felt like incorporating the frat house would make the project smaller, more personal and I also wanted to see the immediate progress of the project.  Other people in lab chose to do larger scale projects that were really interesting, but seemed to large scale to make an immediate difference.  The small size of my project would help me focus my goal in reference to sustainability, as well as show the class and other sections that a small change can have a huge impact

For my project I elected to institute a recycling program in the house.  One goal of this project was to inform the house how, what, where, and why recycling is important and to directly impact the environment to make the frat house a more sustainable operation.  Before the program was instituted there was an extremely small percentage of recyclables that were being recycled.  Not recycling is unsuitable to begin with, but with the quantity of recyclables that the house goes through is absurd.

As soon as I decided to institute this program I asked the treasurer of the Delta Theta Sigma to purchase a separate recycling receptacle to put next to the existing garbage can in the kitchen.  A week after I asked the treasurer he still hadn’t purchased a receptacle, so I brought it up at the fraternity meeting addressing all of the brothers of the frat.  I told them about my project and requested money for a can and then I personally purchased a can for the house.  After obtaining a can I called for a house meeting so I could discuss the program I was going to implement.  In this meeting it was agreed upon that the recycling program was a good idea and then I discussed the logistical aspects of the program.  I attempted to incorporate easy steps to the program to avoid confusion and to prevent people from being lazy and not caring.

I created a list of recyclable objects in our kitchen that are frequently used and I hung it in the kitchen so it is visibly seen.  I also added signs on the recyclable can, so people could differentiate between the garbage and the recycling receptacles.  The task of taking out the recycling was added to the “Midnight List,” which is a list that is performed every night to ensure our kitchen stays clean and organized.  The most crucial part of the meeting was to clarify why I was implementing the program.  I told them that I was doing this as a school project, but there were many more positive repercussions than just fulfilling a requisite.  I explained the impact that this program would have on the environment and how recycling is a sustainable act that should always be done.

I provided numeric values for the amount of resources recycling saves because sometimes quantifying something speaks louder than just stating it’s a beneficial act.  I stated that one ton of plastic that is recycled saves 5,777 kWh of energy, 16.3 barrels of oil, 98 million Btu’s of energy and 30 cubic yards of landfill space.  I also delivered the statistics for a ton of aluminum, which shocked the group more because there is more saved when you recycle aluminum opposed to plastic.  When a ton of aluminum is recycled 14,000 kWh of energy is saved, as well as 39.6 barrels of oil, 237.6 million Btu’s of energy and 10 cubic yards of landfill space.  95 percent of the energy is saved when a single aluminum can is recycled.

Now that my program was in place the monitoring of it was going to be the most difficult problem to overcome.  In the first couple weeks of the program I was extremely strict reminding people to recycle and telling people the vast amount of containers that are recycled by the Madison city municipality.  Every time I would walk past the garbage I would see a couple of recyclables in the garbage, so I would transfer them into the correct place.  Initially I found difficulties trying to instill a mind set in people that stressed the importance of recycling, but now that the program isn’t as new people are recycling more and are paying attention to what they throw away.  The job of taking out the recycling was extremely successful because I simply added it to a list that is regularly completed, so there was no choice in taking them out.

The most important part of my project is assessing how many containers are being recycled and the amount of resources those recycled containers are saving.  To calculate this I recorded the amount of recyclable containers that DTS recycled in a two one week periods and then averaged the numbers to give me a count of how many containers were being recycled each week.

	Gallon Plastic Jugs	2.5 lb Peanut Butter Containers	40oz Ketchup Bottles	1lb Cream Cheese Containers	Soda Cans
Week 1	20	1	3	4	27
Week 2	17	2	2	5	33
Avg/Wk	18.5	1.5	2.5	4.5	30

With these averages I then calculated the amount of resources this program will be saving over a calendar year with the values I previously stated.

Calculations: 

Aluminum:

34 cans = 1 lb of material

16oz/34 cans = .47 oz/can

Avg. 30 cans/week x 52 weeks/year = 1560 cans/year

1560 cans x .47 oz/can = 733.2 oz/year

733.2oz/year / 16oz/1lb = 45.825 lbs/year

45.825lbs/year / 2000lbs/ton = .0229 tons/year

Aluminum: Resources saved over one calendar year with the program I have enacted.

14,000kwh x .0229 = 320 kwh/year

1663 gallons of oil x .0229 = 38.08 gallons of oil/year

237.6 million BTU’s x .0229 = 5.487 million BTU’s/year

10 cubic yards x .0229 = .229 cubic yards/year

Plastic:

Every 20oz of fluid held = 23.83 grams of plastic

Milk Jugs: 18.5 gallons x 128 oz = 2368 oz/wk

Catchup: 40oz/container x 2.5/wk = 100oz/wk

Butter: 16oz/container x 4.5/week = 72 oz/wk

Peanut Butter: 40oz/container x 1.5/wk = 60 oz/wk

2600 oz of plastic saved each week

2600oz / 20oz bottles = 130 20oz bottles

130 bottles x 23.83 g/bottle = 3097.9 g/wk

30.97.9 = 6.829 lbs/wk

6.829 lbs/wk x 52 wks = 355.108 lbs/year

355.108lb / 2000 lbs = .178 tons

 

Plastic: Resources saved over one calendar year with the program I have enacted.

5, 774Kwh x .178 = 1027.77 Kwh/year

685 gallons of oil x .178 = 121.93 gallons/year

98 million BTS’s x .178 = 17.15 million BTU’s/year

30 cubic yards x .178 = 5.34 cubic yards/year

 

These calculated results were extremely surprising because the quantity of materials that will be recycled isn’t that high, but the amount of resources that will be saved over a calendar year is larger than I initially thought.  Such a small recycling program, which only affects 30 people and is so minute in the grand scheme of things, is extremely beneficial to the environment that it doesn’t make sense not to recycle.  These calculations fully reinforce the importance of recycling.

If I were to redo this project I would change a couple of things that I did.  Firstly, I would have initially asked the treasurer of Delta Theta Sigma for money up front, so I could have purchased a recycling receptacle earlier, so more would have been recycled.  I also would have taken a survey of everyone in the house to gauge how many individuals usually recycle, so I could understand the tendencies of the house before I began.  I think this survey could have been beneficial to me because I could have approached the education of recycling differently, perhaps in a way that specifically counter acted the tendencies of the house.  Another thing that I could have improved was implementing a house wide recycling program, that included receptacles on all of the floors, but I started off with a smaller scale operation to transition the house into the idea of recycling.  As I look to next semester, I will be asking the fraternity to purchase three more recycling cans to place in key locations to maximize the recycling and sustainability of the house.

The goal of my project was to inform not only the house, but all who read this that recycling is a small, but very worthwhile task that truly saves the environment.  I hope that more people start to recycle because as our world is rapidly being deprived of resources; more measures need to be taken to ensure that the world will be around in the current state it’s in.