Cauldron

Issue date: 10/11/07 Section: Front Page

Media Credit: Ben Felleman Recycling coordinator Murray Myers empties UST bins at a local center.

After four weeks of debate, the Student Government Association approved Senate Bill 6, allocating $2,600 towards a revamped campus recycling program.

The allocation will finance the purchase of 18 recycling receptacles to place around campus in various high-traffic areas, pay the recycling coordinator's 15-week salary and support advertising efforts.

Senior environmental studies and political science major Murray Myers said he chose to take the recycling program into his own hands when he realized that the existing program, implemented two years ago, was ineffective for want of funding. "It was time to implement something better, more efficient," he said.

Myers said he consulted Environmental Studies Chair William Harris, environmental studies professor Sister Damien-Marie Savino, Assistant Vice President of Facilities Operations Howard Rose and SGA President Josh Gautreau when developing his plan, which he presented to the SGA on Sept. 4. Myers said that after he received positive feedback during the Sept. 4 meeting, he worked with Senator Fidencio Leija to develop the idea into a bill.

However, Myers said that this task proved difficult.

In a letter to the SGA senators, Myers wrote that Leija changed Myers' proposed plan significantly when he drafted it into a bill.

"What took the SGA so long to approve the bill was all of the confusion that resulted from the inconsistencies of my original proposition and the final bill that Senator Leija presented," Myers said.

The SGA elected to use several aspects of Myers' original plan but changed some aspects as well.

"It was a bit of a compromise, I agreed to use a few less bins and accepted a 15-week salary instead of 30-week salary," Myers said.

Myers also incorporated national recycling programs Abitibi Recycling and Recycle Mania, into his plan.

Abitibi Recycling will provide a dumpster for the campus, in which recyclables will be collected. The organization will empty the dumpsters every month for free, and, in addition, pay the University per ton of recycled goods. Myers said this dumpster will be placed on the corner of Richmond Avenue and Graustark Street, in a staff parking lot and that, by incorporating this aspect into the plan, the plan will eventually pay for itself.

Continued...

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