I have always been an environmentally conscious individual, and the College’s commitment to sustainability greatly inspired my enrollment at this institution. I saw a photo of Oberlin’s solar panel field and said, “This is where I belong.” I was so excited to join a campus community that shared my values — a community that I thought would reflect the administration’s commitment to carbon neutrality by 2025 through fossil fuel divestiture and the Sustainable Infrastructure Program. So when I got to campus in October of 2021 and Oberlin had no recycling program in place, I was disappointed, to say the least. Of course, I understood that the decision to end recycling on campus was much bigger than the College, but I still cringed every time I threw out those plastic-wrapped utensils that accompanied every meal — in addition to recycling, the pandemic had put a pause on the use of dining hall silverware. My disappointment continued even after commingled recycling made its return to campus last spring.
I was confused. I had seen signs all semester launching recycling like it was some big blockbuster movie “coming spring 2023.” Yet no one seemed to know if Oberlin was actually recycling. In fact, if you ask a student today if Oberlin recycles, they would probably say, “I don’t know,” as if recycling on campus is some kind of mythical lore, a promise that students have no way of verifying.
Oberlin is actually recycling, but students are not completely at fault for their lack of awareness. For three years, students have been using recycling bins as trash cans, and continue to do so. It is my belief that the College did not effectively advertise the reinstatement of recycling, as made evident by the Con fusion regarding its existence. Announcements on posters, screens, and in the Campus Digest, and even a new zero waste website meant little to a community that has had no actual practice in communal sustainability since the pandemic.
I also think the lack of transparency regarding the status and details of the new recycling program have left the student community confused and discouraged. Personally, I have made an effort to learn about the new recycling program — to clean and separate my waste to avoid contamination — and then have watched custodial staff remove a bag from the recycling bin and put it right into the trash bag from a nearby garbage bin. I was made aware that not all buildings on campus have completely adopted the new recycling program which partially explains these discrepancies, and I, by no means, wish to push blame on the people who keep our spaces clean, but if students cannot trust the College to actually ensure the successful operation of recycling, they are left with little incentive to recycle. The misconceptions about the process will continue to embed themselves in our campus culture.
It is unfair to expect that students coming from all over the world know what to recycle when arriving on campus. Recycling regulations vary from city to city. Similarly, the types of waste students engage with changes when they join a college campus. Did you know that you cannot recycle the cup that you get your daily Azariah’s Café iced latte in? Did you know that you cannot recycle your Umami bowl, sushi box, or DeCafé salad container? This is not intuitive knowledge. In my hometown, these forms of #1 plastics are all easily recyclable. At Oberlin, only #1 and #2 plastics with necks or handles — bottles — can be recycled through Oberlin’s new commingled recycling program in addition to metal and aluminum cans, clean cardboard, and mixed paper.
Still, Oberlin offers many other useful kinds of recycling on a smaller scale. Glass recycling bins are located behind Harkness House, within the Union Goldsmith housing complex, and in the Wilder Hall parking lot, with additional Terracycling locations in the Wilder lobby for oral care, razors, and Brita products. Oberlin even has a composting program in Dascomb, Kahn, and Barrows. This is all to say that the resources exist, but students generally lack knowledge about their existence and usability. It is my belief that all incoming classes, as well as students already on campus, should be oriented on how to recycle at Oberlin as well as on all of the resources and projects related to sustainability on campus. This communal and required learning would reinspire Oberlin’s culture surrounding sustainable action and impact.
I understand that a discussion of recycling requires an acknowledgement of the culture of blame within the sustainability movement. I was, and continue to be, a victim of the propaganda surrounding our individual impact on the climate crisis. My bamboo toothbrush and zero waste shampoo bar are nothing but ironic attempts to calm my inner environmental guilt and doom while our world leaders continue to remain complicit in the mass production and consumption of fossil fuels and other ecologically and environmentally damaging projects. Still, I believe firmly in the impact of a community. When almost 3,000 students do not recycle their plastic water bottles every day, it has an impact on our already overflowing landfills.
The reality is that recycling is not about saving the environment right now, it’s about creating a culture that is prepared for the future and committed to learning, adapting, and acting to ensure our existence on this planet. Oberlin should be training its students to be competent leaders and advocates of sustainability, and that cannot happen without a willingness from students and more educational programming related to systems like recycling.
