Global Warming - A.S. Recycling Services

Looking at a campus with dry, yellow-brown grass with pieces of paper all over and crushed cans, the view of the place is uneasy to the eye and unpleasant to look at. This is the college campus of California State University, Los Angeles. A campus that does not help prevent the causes of global warming.

On the contrary, if you see the campus at California State University, Northridge the atmosphere is green and clean. The Associated Students (A.S.) Recycling Services is part of the reason why the campus maintains its beautiful ambiance. A.S. Recycling Services allows the campus community to be a greener place and does their duty to help reduce the affects of global warming.

A.S. Recycling Services provides recycling services to California State University, Northridge. They help make the university a cleaner and eco-friendly environment. A.S. Recycling recycles cans, bottles, paper and more. By recycling and preventing waste, A.S. Recycling Services is reducing greenhouse gas emission.

Reported by the United States Environmental Protection Agency Web site, “reducing waste and recycling it can reduce methane emissions from landfills. Waste prevention and recycling (including composting) divert organic wastes from landfills, thereby reducing the methane released when these materials decompose. Waste reduction and recycling can also reduce emissions from incinerators.” Not only does recycling reduce greenhouse gas emission but it also saves energy and fewer fossil fuels are burned.

“…recycling and waste prevention allow some materials to be diverted from incinerators and thus reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the combustion of waste. Recycling saves energy and reduces emissions from energy consumption. Manufacturing goods from recycled materials typically requires less energy than producing goods from virgin materials. Waste prevention is even more effective at saving energy. When people reuse things or when products are made with less material, less energy is needed to extract, transport, and process raw materials and to manufacture products. When energy demand decreases, fewer fossil fuels are burned and less carbon dioxide is emitted to the atmosphere,” according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency Web site.

The A.S. Recycling Services team is at work every school day. Salvador Preciado, the recycling team leader for A.S. Recycling Services said, “We pick up cardboard on campus, we have routes for bottles and cans daily. One day out of the week, we go around and check the paper bins that are all around campus and housing. Every day we go to a location where we pick up laser toner cartridges and after picking up bottles and cans, we sort them out,” as he concentrates on driving the recycling cart to one of the recycling bins.

As soon as we make a stop to one of the bins, Salvador opens it up with a key and dumps the material in the bin to the trunk of the cart. He gets back into the cart and drives to the next stop. Squinting his eyes from the sun, he says, “We reduce waste and we keep the campus cleaner by recycling itself. It is one aspect of reducing global warming it’s the most common.”

Not only does the recycling team pick up recycled material, but they educate the campus community. On the Associated Students Web site it explains that the purpose of the recycling services is to implement a comprehensive program to inform, educated and encourage the campus community to recycle. Also to set an example to others in the campus community by active participation to decrease adverse impacts on our environment and conserve precious natural resources.

The recycling services host annual events, Earth Fair and America Recycles Day to bring awareness. “America Recycles Day is November, we usually just promote for students to recycle more, and we table on campus and bring the event to students. Earth Fair is usually on the day of the national holiday, Earth Day, which is in April,” Salvador said.

Salvador continued, “We bring different people and environmental organizations for the Earth Fair…that help educate students to reduce global warming. Many of the organizations educate on different things. For example, not cutting trees, doing certain things different and informing about animals that are close to extinction.”

It is not only America Recycles Day and Earth Fair, when the recycling services educate the campus community. They reach out to the campus whenever they can. With a positive tone, Salvador said, “When we can…we try to do tabling for different campus events and we try to tell our classmates to recycle.”

The recycling services do their duty in educating as much as they can and recycling materials that are properly discarded, but not the whole campus population recycles with the recycling services and that can lower the possible expansion of the services. “We provide a lot of services, but the problem is that not even students use us to recycle. Since money is involved they prefer to recycle themselves, instead of the recycling program. The program can expand its just getting more support and awareness,” Salvador said.