Gabby DeMarchi
News Editor
For several years now, there has been an ongoing debate on the Springfield College campus that never seems to die down: do we or do we not recycle?
“Yes, but not enough,” junior Molly Goldberger said.
“Absolutely not,” said senior Colleen Brague.
“No, but I think that we need to so our world can thrive,” senior Liz Hurley said.
“We do recycle,” Allison Rudolph, treasurer of the Environmental Club and someone who has been working with facilities and the school on the recycling issue, said with a smile. “Anything marked recycling, any blue bin or anything with a clear bag in it is considered recycling.”
While the school has been recycling for a while now, many students obviously still seem confused and uncertain about how, what or where to recycle.
In partnership with Babson Library, the Environmental Club hopes to clear up the confusion one step at a time.
“Right now, we’re working on bringing back the recycling initiative from a few years ago,” Rudolph explained. “It’s there, but people don’t really know about it. That’s been this semester’s big goal.”
While Rudolph and the rest of the Environmental Club realize that getting the entire campus to start actively recycling isn’t something that can happen overnight, they are taking baby steps to achieving their recycling goals.
The first step the group is taking in promoting their new initiative is to begin electronic recycling in Babson Library.
“[The library] contacted us at the beginning of the semester,” said Rudolph. “There are a few people there interested in getting recycling going on their end, because they see how much paper gets thrown away every day there, so they contacted us and said we could do whatever. So we thought a good start would be regular bins, but also [bins for] the electronics.”
“We’ve been interested in partnering with the students for a while,” said Director of Babson Library Andrea Taupier.
Taupier and the rest of her staff agree that they have wanted to be more heavily involved in the recycling process on campus for a while now, and one of the big reasons why is due to the amount of paper the library goes through daily.
“The paper issue is a whole other issue. I understand that students aren’t in favor of paying for printing, however, there is a ton of waste, and I would just love for students to think a little bit more before they print,” Taupier explained.
While the library staff is looking into different ways of dealing with their paper consumption, they are honored and pleased to help get the Environmental Club’s initiative rolling.
“We are open a lot. We are a place that students come to meet. It would be great if we could provide them with the recycling that they need,” said Taupier.
As of this week, Babson now has four bins located on the first floor where the old pay phones used to be, to the right of the men’s bathroom. In each bin a different electronic can be recycled such as ink cartridges, cell phones, rechargeable batteries and regular batteries.
Every so often, the bins will be emptied and sent to Staples where they will be properly recycled.
Rudolph and the rest of the club realize that partnering with the library is going to help them greatly, but starting electronic recycling in Babson is just the beginning.
“The library was just the start to see how students respond,” Rudolph said. “We’re hoping to also do the residence halls because, I’m in Abbey right now, and we have a trash room and recycling bins, but nothing is labeled. We’re working on that right now to make it easy to read [the bins]. That’ll start popping up over the next couple of weeks.”