In the last year, MU recycled 2,531 tons of waste. That’s 31.2 percent of the 8,108 tons of solid waste created on campus. Compared to other Big 12 Conference schools that report their recycling statistics, MU is a leading recycler.

Recycling at MU is a group effort. The Campus Facilities Department, the Sustainability Office, Residential Life and Sustain Mizzou are the primary groups that collaborate to increase recycling. According to Sustainability Coordinator Steve Burdic, the recycling efforts at MU depend almost entirely on volunteers.

“Custodians don’t help much on recycling due to budget constraints,” Burdic said. “We are trying to find ways to save them time so they can get more involved.”

Katherine Seal, Sustain Mizzou president and resident of the new Mizzou Sustainahouse, said that though most of the responsibilities for recycling fall under the Sustainability Office, Sustain Mizzou has a large presence both on and off campus through education, local action and cooperation.

**Where did it all start?**

It was in 1998 when Residential Life first began recycling paper, according to Rita Houg, assistant director of Conferences and Building Services.

“It was a slow start,” Houg said. “It took a while to grow.”

In 2004, the efforts were expanded to include plastics, glass and aluminum, Houg said. They put containers throughout residence halls and worked with the city to get co-mingle bins, which are the large bins around campus which take a variety of recyclable materials.

In 2005, Sustain Mizzou founded the Tiger Tailgate Recycling program, according to Jesse Day, current project leader for the program. TTR kicks off in the fall along with the football season and coordinates volunteers to collect recyclables throughout tailgating areas during and after Tiger football games. The program is successful, Day said, and since its creation has collected 110 tons of recyclables. TTR contributed roughly 10 percent to the MU totals for fiscal year 2011, he said but they would like to see more.

“We recycle maybe half of the recyclable material that gets produced at each game,” Day said. “We don’t want anything to go in the trash that doesn’t need to go in the trash.”

In 2007, a sustainability task force was formed to evaluate seven areas of the school that were affected by sustainability practices.

In April 2009, a sustainability coordinator position was created and the Sustainability Office opened. According to the Climate Action Plan, the new office was tasked with coordinating and supporting existing programs as well as finding ways to expand sustainability throughout the campus.

**Could MU do better?**

Although MU comes out ahead of other Big 12 schools, when compared to some West Coast schools, it doesn’t measure up.

In the ultra-green Northwest, the University of Washington diverted 62 percent of its waste last year, and the University of Oregon recycled 49 percent. In California, UC-Los Angeles recycled 60 percent of its solid waste and UC-San Diego came in at 42 percent — 27 percent more than MU.

The average for these four West Coast schools is 53 percent, more than double the average for the Big 12 schools that reported a diversion rate, which stands at 26 percent.

Part of the success of schools like UW, however, is that they have been recycling a lot longer than MU.

UW facilities department spokesperson Alex Credgington said recycling got its start there way back in 1970, almost 30 years before it officially started at MU. Recycling began at UW after students and faculty decided to sit-in on campus and sort trash. They sent items like paper, plastic, glass and metal back to manufacturers with a request that they be reprocessed, Credgington said. After that, a campus-wide plan developed.

As more opportunity for recycling became available, UW’s program grew.

“Recycling at UW was a step-by-step process over a lot of years,” Credgington said. “But the biggest challenge was getting it started. And part of the attitude is dependent on what’s available for people to recycle.”

Columbia’s situation is not the same as Seattle’s.

The city of Columbia only recycles No. 1 and No. 2 plastics, along with aluminum, mixed paper, cardboard and some others. There are a host of other recyclable plastics, but without a city service to take them, there’s not much MU can do to get them recycled, Residential Life Director Frankie Minor said.

Considering the limitations and relative infancy of the recycling efforts at MU, much of its success can be attributed to changes in habits of students, Minor said.

“It’s increasingly become more of an interest for our students,” he said. “Initially, we didn’t have a lot of desire from our students, but as that desire has grown, so have the other pieces.”

Minor said with the current limitations MU has, it tends to do a pretty good job. Former Sustain Mizzou president Tina Casagrand agreed.

“Within the limitations of city recycling, I think recycling on campus is coming along well,” Casagrand said. “We should absolutely try to raise our recycling rate. We should be at 100 percent. Everyone at Mizzou needs to be on board.”

According to Seal, the current recycling options at MU are sufficient.

“But education and motivation from people is part of what keeps the recycling system at MU from being as effective as possible,” she said. “We should congratulate ourselves on recycling 31.2 percent of the university’s waste, and then continue to push for higher recycling results this year. We still have a long way to go, but we are headed in the right direction.”