The lack of recycling bins on campus leaves Fresno State
with little choice but to throw recycled cans in trash bins.

Photo Illustration by Alicia Acevedo / The Collegian

When it comes to making Fresno State a cleaner campus, it appears that other schools, not only in the San Joaquin Valley, but scattered throughout California are ahead of the curve.

Although there are a few small blue recycling bins setup around campus, some students and faculty alike feel there is not enough designated recycling receptacles on school grounds.

It appears that not only does Fresno State have less recycling bins for students to use, but it also fails keep up with Fresno’s recycling standards.

Administrator of the Office of Environmental Health and Safety Lisa Kao insists that this perception is false and misleading as her department has and continues to set recycling bins out to facilitate a school-wide movement.

“The student assistant who monitors the recycling bins wants students to put cans and bottles in the recycling bins but they never do,” Kao said. “So we have started to remove some of them.”

“In addition homeless [residents] will come and steal the bottles and cans that are locked inside the recycling bins themselves.”

Kao and her staff in the past found that a lot of students didn’t even trouble themselves with throwing away their recyclables in a nearby bin and this made things frustrating for the EHS department.

Regarding the recent trends of “going green” and sorting paper, plastic, glass and aluminum, which constitutes the budding recycling program in California, Fresno State has fallen behind.

Instead of generating ways of collecting money to go toward funding a better recycling program on campus, the EHS has opted for cheaper and less effective methods to dispose and sort all the recyclables.

Rolling out big blue trash bins and placing them behind only a few buildings throughout campus, Kao and her staff have encourage students and faculty to use these units as means to dispose of their recyclables, especially paper.

“Students should make sure that paper gets to the big blue Dumpsters in back of buildings to ensure proper disposal,” Kao said. “Also, all waste that gets thrown into the blue Dumpster is properly sorted and shipped to Sunset Waste management where it is placed in a landfill.” Kao said.

Although Kao reports that students and faculty appear uninterested in keeping Fresno State clear of trash, others beg to differ. University faculty and students have expressed their interest in upgrading the recycling program on campus.

“I think they should make it a lot easier for [students to recycle]. A lot of people here are probably not used to it and it’s a very good movement,” Fresno State recreation major Jenna Smith said.

“They don’t put any conscious effort to help [students] recycle more,” Fresno State student Daniel Gong added.

Throughout the state of California, universities have raised the cost of admission and tuition, yet other schools such as University of California, Davis and California State University, Chico have been able to create and successfully sustain proficient recycling programs.

R4 Recycling is a successful and convenient program that works in conjunction with University of California, Davis and keeps the campus clean by reusing, recycling or reducing the amount of waste thrown into landfills.

Students founded Associated Students Recycling Program at California State University, Chico in 1996 to increase recycling efforts. The organization focuses on encouraging responsibility on students. The program allows for people to get a more hands on approach to the issue of recycling.

Students and faculty at Fresno State have taken it upon themselves to recycle on an individual basis.

“I think some people have taken it upon themselves to get [personal recycling bins] and have tried to adhere to the higher goal of recycling,” Director of Social Work Education Jane Middleton said.

With recycling efforts being a issue of concern in California, some students wonder if the Environmental Health and Safety department still cares about developing environmental efforts.

“But, overall I would say that we are not the strongest school when it comes to keeping our campus clean,” Middleton added.