Rinckey: Recycle this paper

Sometimes it is truly disheartening to look in garbage cans around the University of Toledo. Honestly, I have stopped looking because oftentimes I see copies of The Independent Collegian in the trash. But I’m not sad because the newspaper that I had spent hours on the week before was thrown away. No, I’m sad because it was put in the garbage and not the recycling bin.

Over the summer when I passed papers out at Rocket Launch, and at the end of the day the only thing that was in the garbage were newspapers. This made me so angry that sometimes I would pick up papers out of the garbage and put them in with the recycling.

How hard is it to read? Is it too much to assume that people in college can read? The recycling bin for newspapers is labeled “Newspaper.” It should be common sense for people to put it there instead of with the garbage that goes to landfills.

It kind of surprises me that a lot of students don’t recycle even after years of being told to. Colleges are usually some of the most liberal places and recycling is a liberal cause, and yet people don’t live by this philosophy. Essays on computer paper and coke cans are thrown in with the garbage. And sometimes people use the different recycling bins interchangeably, when each has its own purpose. It is common to see office paper in the newspaper bin.

It’s not even that it is more convenient to just throw things away. UT did a good job this year in getting new recycling bins that separated recyclable goods into different categories. Recycle bins are right next to the trashcans, so it isn’t any easier to put everything in the garbage.

But why do some people choose not to recycle? I think it might be because they are not 100 percent sure what all can be recycled. Sometimes it is hard to tell what can be recycled because certain kinds of materials aren’t accepted at all recycling stations like plastic bags. But you should look at whatever you are planning on throwing away. If it says “please recycle” or has the recycling triangle on it, then it obviously can be recycled. On the recycling bins at UT there are little notes about which materials can go in what bins. Plastic numbers one and two and plastic bottles can be recycled here, whole books and plastic bags cannot.

And to those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about because you recycle religiously and never see the trash filled with things that can be recycled, then keep on doing what you are doing. You are perfect. You can try to take recycling a step farther and try to reuse the materials you are planning on recycling — like plastic bottles, plastic bags or scrap pieces of paper. After all, we were taught to reduce, reuse AND recycle.

And the next time I see this paper, I hope you put it in the recycling bin. (Unless you are reading this online.)

Morgan Rinckey is a second-year double majoring in English and communication, and she is the Opinion Editor for The Independent Collegian.