Shippensburg University’s trash cans overflow with recyclable items — Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donut cups, water bottles, cans and food containers all nestled in a bed of used napkins, stuck together with wads of gum and smeared with wasted drink and food. Right next to these overburdened trash cans are single-stream recycling containers where glass, plastic, aluminum, cardboard, paper and magazines can be recycled.

When Joshua Brenneman could not find a recycling container off campus, he did not let his orange juice bottle become one of the 21,000 plastic recyclables that are thrown away each semester at SU. He saved it. To say that environmental conservation is important to Brenneman would be an understatement.

Brenneman, a senior in the geography/earth science department, conducted a project during the 2016 spring semester to estimate the average number of recycled items that are thrown away each semester-- a total of 43,158 items. That equates to almost 900 pounds of recycling that is thrown away every single semester. For seven days, Brenneman counted the topmost layer of trash in 188 hallway trash cans in 12 high traffic buildings on SU’s campus and then averaged his results.

“I thought it was very alarming when Josh had reported that such a significant amount of the trash-can waste was actually recycling that could be put into the recycling [can] right next to it,” Sean Cornell, an assistant professor in the geography/earth science department said.

Cornell also helped to head a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant awarded to SU. It is an initiative to teach students about environmental conservation across all majors as well as to involve students in the outdoors with extracurricular projects. Cornell said it is up to SU to help educate students about what can be recycled on campus.

“Personally I don’t think that students are purposefully throwing stuff out as much as I believe they are just not educated on how to do recycling appropriately on campus,” Cornell said. “And for that I think the university — including our courses, our faculty, our staff, our administration — have to make a better effort on informing our students on how to recycle and what can be recycled. And I think that’s one of the exciting things about Josh’s study is that we can get better.”

Despite the high volume of recycling that is thrown away, the university has increased the amount of recycling by 754 pounds compared to the year before at this same time, according to Robert Koch, custodial services manager for SU. This year’s 3,906 pounds of recycling does not include newspaper, which would increase this measurement even further, Koch said. Over the past few years, SU also increased the variety of items that are recycled including paper, paperboard, magazines, light bulbs, concrete, steel and wooden pallets. Specific organizations on campus, like the chemistry club, recycle batteries, and the computer science department recycles computer cartridges.

It was not just trash Brenneman dug into, but people too. He conducted an online survey of 11 questions to understand students’ knowledge of recycling, and what he found — between his trash can data and his surveys — was a major contradiction. Out of the 320 students surveyed, 68 percent said recycling is important to them, yet an average of 187 plastic recyclables are thrown away every single day.

“I don’t know if [students] don’t care. Based off the sample of the trash cans it seems like they don’t care, but based off of the questions it seems like they care but they are just unsure of what can be recycled and where it can be recycled. So it’s a knowledge gap,” Brenneman said.

Forty-seven percent of students reported they did not know that plastic recyclables are sorted by a number inside the triangular recycling symbol. There are seven types of plastics, and although not all municipalities recycle all seven, SU does.

Because Brenneman grew up in New York City, where only plastics one and two can be recycled, Brenneman said he assumed it was the same for SU. It was not until he conducted his research project that he learned that all plastics can be recycled.

“I think it’s interesting that as a geography/earth science major I had no idea anything above a two could be recycled, and I think that shows a level of either the department or the school not preparing students for certain things on campus,” Brenneman said.

Additionally, many of the Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts cups he found in the trash still had drinks left in them, and in talking with students, Brenneman learned that many students think that containers need to be clean before being recycled. However, an item can contain food or drink and still be recycled.

Sixty-seven percent of the people surveyed said if they do not know if something can be recycled, they throw it away.

A possible solution to inform students, Brenneman said, would be to have an introductory presentation during freshmen orientation that teaches students about SU’s recycling policies.

Part of the reason people do not recycle, Brenneman said, is because they do not realize their one cup makes a difference.

“You see a landfill filled with all of these different things, but your one cup, well that’s just one cup so what is that going to cause? But because everyone on campus and everyone around the world is thinking that, that’s a lot of cups.”

Brenneman refused to submit to the “one cup” trap when he saved his orange juice bottle and left it in his car until he could find a recycling receptacle.

Brenneman said what he is doing — simply doing his part — is small compared to the conservationists who spend 40-some hours fighting for a cleaner world.

He just does what he can while others do the “big work,” Brenneman said.

Yet if everybody did their part and lived as Brenneman — taking the small steps by saving orange juice bottles — people would not need to do the “big work.”

If every single person at SU recycled, every year students would save roughly 1,800 pounds of trash from ever seeing a landfill. Now that would be big work.

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