Teaching About Recycling

John Pepi is the solid waste manager over at the University of Massachusetts. One of the things that he does well is helping out lessen the amount of garbage that the school produces. He also does help out in teaching students the facts about recycling and looking at what we throw away.

The Daily Collegian tells us what Pepi does:

When the town of Amherst severely limited UMass’s use of its waste facilities in the early 90’s, the University turned a former horse riding arena on Tillson Farm and converted it into a multi-million dollar recycling facility and now uses it to dispose of 3,500 tons of trash per year. The facility handles 400 tons of cardboard per year, 100-200 tons of computer equipment and handles other material that other, smaller schools cannot dispose of. The recycling center has created between 10 and 15 jobs compared to three generated by simply throwing material into a landfill, a practice the National Recycling Coalition estimates is seventeen times less efficient than recycling.

If there were more people like him, our environment would surely be benefiting from lesser garbage.

[Via Daily Collegian]
[Image from Service]