Residence hall recycling survey results

[Dautremont-Smith, Julian]

Hello Green Team,

 

As some of you may know, students in Austin Cheney’s Manufacturing Management class and I recently collaborated on a survey of campus residents about recycling in residence halls.  I thought members of the this group might be interested in the results, a summary of which is attached.

 

The highlights are:

 

·         277 students responded

·         81% of respondents think recycling is at least moderately important to them personally; 42% say it’s extremely or very important.

·         Only 18% of respondents think the recycling system in their residence hall is pretty good or excellent; 43% think it is “not good” or “terrible”.

·         51% of respondents have never been to the recycling room in their residence hall

·         54% of respondents “rarely” or “never” recycle paper in their residence halls.  For the other major categories of recyclables - cardboard, glass, cans, and plastic - the numbers are 44, 45, 31, and 29%, respectively.

·         The most commonly cited obstacle to recycling in residence halls was that bins are inconvenient to access.  The second most commonly cited obstacle was “No place to store recyclables in my room.”  The third most commonly cited obstacle (selected by 28% of respondents) was “No bins available.”

·         The most popular step to improve recycling in the residence halls (selected by 71% of respondents) was “adding recycling receptacles on each floor of the residence hall.”  Coming in a close second (with support from 69% of respondents) was “Establishing a place on campus to return deposit bottles and cans that would add money to your campus spending account.”

 

There are lots of interesting written comments too.   One person actually takes recyclables home because they didn’t think they could do it on campus!  Also, many comments strongly supported of the idea to have a place to return deposit bottles on campus.

 

Overall, these results suggest that students see a lot of room for improvement in residence hall recycling.  Fortunately, the changes they’d like to see seem quite feasible and are consistent with the recommendations of a separate Emerging Pioneers Leadership Group that I’ve been working with to evaluate residence hall recycling.  I’m planning to work with Res Life over the summer to see if we can make recycling accessible in every trash closet.  I’m also looking to options for deposit return machines on campus.

 

Please let me know if you have any questions or would like to dig deeper on some aspect of the data.

 

Julian

 

--

Julian Dautremont-Smith

Chief Sustainability Officer

Office of the President

Alfred State College

(607) 587-4011

dau...@alfredstate.edu

 

[Curry, Robert L]

Great work—thanks for sharing it.

-Bob
--
Robert Curry, Ph.D.
Chair, Dept. of English & Humanities
327 Student Development Center
Alfred State, SUNY College of Technology
(607) 587-4235

dau...@alfredstate.edu<mailto:dau...@alfredstate.edu>


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