On average, an individual generates 4.4 pounds of trash per day, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Only one-third of that waste is recycled and composted.
The New School tries to mitigate this by separating its trash cans into three categories and scattering the receptacles in large numbers throughout its 20 buildings.
While the university’s attempt at recycling is admirable, it is inconsistent and confusing.
Each and every trash can I’ve seen around school contains a sloppy mess of plastic, paper and food scraps.
Students aren’t throwing their trash away correctly, so what is the point of spending money to have three different garbage cans?
At first I wondered whether students were apathetic to the university’s recycling system. I asked 12 students at the University Center if they are mindful about separating their trash. Each student had an answer similar to, “yes, almost all of the time” or “I try to be.”
However, 10 of them, including myself, have experienced confusion when discerning which can to throw their garbage in.
Clearly, the problem is not with the students, it is with the garbage cans themselves. Ten of the students I asked said the signage needs to be more consistent and more clearly labeled. Six students said the openings of the garbage cans are often the wrong size. I can’t help but agree with all of them.
We just don’t know how to decrypt our recycling system’s bizarre signs, labels and garbage can designs.
Presently, the New School separates its garbage into three categories: blue for mixed recycling, green for paper and black for landfill.
Mixed recycling is any hard plastic, metal or glass product and paper waste is any cardboard or paper related item that hasn’t been too soiled by food oils.
Landfill is everything else; coffee cups, food containers, styrofoam, food scraps and thin plastic bags. Landfill is also the most problematic of the three because it either cannot be recycled or it takes thousands of years to biodegrade.
In regards to design, many of the garbage can openings have shapes that intend to correspond with the type of trash the university assumes its community throws away.
Unfortunately, our trash doesn’t always fit that shape.
The width of the opening for the paper and cardboard can is about the size of an index finger. For glass, metal and plastic there is a circle about the size of an outstretched hand. Sometimes these shapes don’t correspond with what’s being thrown away.
For example, many students, including myself, buy sushi at the UC cafeteria. Their rectangle-shaped containers are half cardboard and half plastic. The cardboard fits easily into its corresponding cans opening. The plastic part doesn’t, and unless I remember to crush it up into a ball, into “landfill” it goes.
I’m not the only one that has this problem. Food Studies student Jordan McDowell said she also runs into hurdles while trying to throw away sushi from the cafeteria.
“Sometimes it doesn’t fit even if it’s the correct material,” McDowell said. “I don’t think it’s good to generalize the shape of trash.”
Other issues with garbage can design are with the signage, or lack thereof. Many parts of the New School don’t have any signs by the garbage cans. Sometimes, only the corresponding colors, blue, green and black, can provide hints for which garbage can is right.
An inconsistent system is certainly better than no system, but these variations within the New School’s buildings may point to why so many students don’t know how to throw away their trash.
If students want to take the right steps towards environmental awareness, the New School needs to provide the right platform to allow it be possible.
Garbage can signage and openings shape need to be consistent, descriptive and easy to understand. If students encounter the same trash cans and signs over and over again, they will develop the habit of throwing their garbage away properly.
Certainly the New School is more mindful of the environment than most universities across the country, but if it wants to boast itself as progressive and be taken seriously, it needs to have the proof to back it up.