Recycling Program

Commingled Recycling Comes to UCSB!

The UCSB Recycling Program is excited to announce a six-month trial program of commingled recycling at UCSB! Starting in March 2008, the Recycling Program under the capable guidance of Mary Ann Hopkins will be teaming up with Custodial Services to provide building occupants with commingled recycling at their desks, in addition to familiar source separation. The buildings chosen for this test are: Embarcadero Hall, Ellison, Bren, Life Science, and North Hall. For 20-plus years, the occupants and visitors of UCSB have accomplished an aggressive source-separation program that produced clean streams of valuable office pack, aluminum, plastic, and cardboard that has defrayed solid waste disposal costs in addition to maintaining a diversion rate above 50% which has kept the campus ahead of State, County, and UCOP requirements.

The State of California and UCOP have set the following goals for waste diversion statewide: 50% by June 2008, 75% by June 2012, and 100% by June 2020. Thanks to the combined efforts of office occupants, Ms. Hopkins, the Custodial staff, and the A.S. Recycling Program, this campus recycled 95.6 tons of cardboard, 55.73 tons of "office pack," and 264.16 tons of commingled material during calendar year 2006 which puts us well above the 50% total diversion mark.

However, to make the next leap to 75%, UCSB will be striving even harder to capture the residual recyclable materials that unfortunately end up in the Tajiguas Landfill. On a six-month trial basis; classroom, conference room, personal office, and departmental office refuse cans will be converted to commingled recycling: plastic, aluminum, metal, glass, newspapers, or anything that is not organic and is not "office pack". "Office pack" (all non-glossy paper) will still be separated into the clip-on blue bins at each refuse can, and office occupants will be responsible for emptying these blue bins into the large, labeled "office pack" containers that Custodial staff service. The commingled recyclables will be mechanically and hand-sorted at the MarBorg facility downtown.

Organic materials such as apple cores, food items, tea bags, etc., must be placed only in kitchen or restroom refuse cans, where they will be serviced daily. It is very important that all organic waste be scrupulously kept out of commingled recycling to keep the cost to UCSB down, to minimize pest problems, and also to maximize value of the recyclables.

Ms. Hopkins will be communicating directly with Management Service Officers in all buildings scheduled to participate in the trial program. Vice Chancellor Donna Carpenter and I want to thank you all in advance for helping our campus achieve this next milestone in recycling and continuing to lead the UC system in sustainability.

Recycling Information

About Us/Contact Resources
Associated Students Recycling Program, 805-893-7765
Commonly Asked Recycling Questions
Recycling Information about what is acceptable and unacceptable in "office pack" and your recycling bins.
Closing the recycling loop - the 4 "R"s
Recycling Summaries of statistics for solid waste diverted from landfill.

Recycling Update

With the passage of the State legislature bill AB75(which took effect on January 1, 2000), UCSB needs to reduce our landfill weights by: 25% by the year 2002, and 50% by 2004! These goals were met and exceeded.

For the percentage and amounts view statistics.

Frequently and throughout different buildings on this campus waste stream audits are used to assure that the majority of our recyclable rich materials are being captured. UCSB in kept 188.1 tons of "office pack" from the landfill. However, the waste stream audits on this campus are showing that "office pack" is still the main ingredient -58%- of our landfill trash. This is a lower number than we have had before but still not acceptable. "Office pack" can be recycled many times back to its high quality content. Did you know that a piece of unshredded paper can be recycled back to paper 7 times prior to being recycled to a lesser grade of product such as cardboard fill?

Recycling Office Pack

The 188.1 Tons tons of "office pack" that UCSB kept from the landfill in 2003 through recycling efforts equates to the savings of:

•1,267,278.60 Gallons of Water

•10,954.94 pounds of Air Pollution

•551.13 cubic yards of Landfill space

•376.20 Gallons of Oil

•773,427.69 Hours of electricity (92.25 years for a 2 bedroom house)

•4,362.03 Trees

Catch the "UCSBelieves in Recycling" wave!
Use your blue "Pitch In" bins.
Feed those green Office Pack containers.
Flatten that cardboard.
Put that can or newspaper in the outside Associated Students recycling clusters
(walk a little way, the exercise is good for you).

UCSB has been able to form a strong network of dedicated people with a variety of talents to create this growing recycling program. The main ingredient to any successes we have had in recycling are due to the people on this campus. We are all responsible and we all have to participate in this recycling goal.