BRIAN SMITH, Editor in Chief
Gray plastic bins with navy blue tops are common in SCAD buildings. The blue tops have a slit cut across them, intended for white paper and nothing else. That white paper is supposed to be bagged by the outsourced housekeeping crews of SCAD buildings and sent to Savannah’s recycling center. However, intentions are not always met, and a lack of recycling at SCAD is a result.
Two guys are sitting at the same bank of computers as me on the third floor of the Jen Library, eating sushi and rice out of Styrofoam and plastic boxes and watching YouTube clips of dogs chasing laser pointer beams. They get up to leave, and take their trash to a nearby blue bin. Oblivious, one sticks his fingers in the paper slot and pops the top off. The other shoves their sushi boxes into the bin. They stick the top back on and leave.
I walk over and look inside. A big pile of white printer sheets splashed with soy sauce sits at the bottom of the bin. One of the Styrofoam boxes pops open on its own and reveals a wad of wasabi and leftover rice. This batch of recycling won’t be recycled.
Another of these bins resides next to the copy machine where I work, in the Student Media Center. It’s the day after the sushi incident, and I’m checking this bin. There’s no food in it, but there’s still a problem. Only a few sheets of paper are down at the bottom. I walk around to each wastebasket in the offices at Keys Hall — all are stuffed with crumpled white paper — recyclables.
Rumors have been circulating through Keys Hall and the rest of the college about those blue bins — some have seen maintenance employees dumping the recycling bins in with trash.
Professional working staff members at Keys Hall, including a member of the Sustainability and Eco Practices at SCAD Council, have expressed interest in structuring a recycling initiative at the building.
Two SCAD buildings are fully compliant with recycling now — one of them is the industrial design building, the Gulfstream Center for Design.
Verena Paepcke, an industrial design professor who works at Gulfstream, tells me their recycling program is entirely student-initiated and maintained, but it’s still not a complete success.
“The problem is that [non-white paper products] end up in the bins. Also, I haven’t seen it myself, but I’ve heard that cleaning crews have dumped [recycling] in with the trash here as well.”
The other building trying to keep things green is the architecture building, Eichberg Hall. Eichberg is the epicenter of Project Green, a group at SCAD that’s “striving to promote environmental sustainability within the college community,” as their blog reads. I spoke with Brian Bessenaire, the president of Project Green.
“Simply put, it was the blue bins that inspired Project Green to lobby the school regarding their recycling policy. Project Green is a pilot recycling program for the rest of the college, both influenced by, and responding to, the successes and failures of the blue bins. Project Green is now working with the school to help cultivate a responsible recycling program, as well as generate a sense of awareness amongst the student body.”
I wrote an email to Connie Williams, administrative assistant at Keys Hall, requesting an order for our own recycling bins in the office. The response I got was a success — the new bins are on their way. Aluminum, paper and plastics will now have a new place to be thrown out without guilt. Hopefully all SCAD buildings will follow the example Eichberg and Gulfstream are setting, and support recycling in full force.