It’s always exciting to come back to campus and see the new changes. When I moved in, I noticed that some of the parking spaces in front of the wall had a dumpster in it. Perfect for move-in days. If you need to throw stuff, great, it’s right there. Then I noticed these spots were painted, no parking. Now I walk into my room and when I look for a place to put my own trash cans, I already see a black trash can and a blue one with bags. A nice little surprise, I didn’t need to bring mine. Now that everyone has two trash cans, there are no more trash cans in hallways or living rooms. At least in my dorm.
The Round Table had the opportunity to speak with Pasquell, a cleaner who has been in Beloit for seven years. He said there was a “rumor going around at the start of the summer that we weren’t going to have to worry about the trash next year…taking out the trash from the students”. However, like most rumors, it came in one ear and the other. Suddenly the idea caught on.
“It’s an opportunity for students to take responsibility. If you live in an apartment, you have to take your trash to the dumpster anyway. No one is going to come in and take the trash cans out of the hallways. Pasquel said. When I first saw the different bins, I thought ‘what even goes in the recycling bins?’ We will come back to it.
The Roundtable asked Pasquell how this changes his workload. He said: “It’s definitely a weight on my shoulders… What’s great is that I don’t feel like I have to rob Peter to pay Paul. I feel like I can clean the floors, showers and toilets for you. For the most part I could keep up, but I know there were a whole bunch where the trash was a problem for them because it was so heavy. In conversation, Monday morning was brought up, as the cleaners aren’t there on weekends. “You weren’t a cleaner on Monday, you were just a garbage man. You haven’t really done much except wipe down a few sinks. he said.
Adding though, he hopes Beloit didn’t do it for them. They did it for the students. So students can learn and be interactive as they try to do their part to care for the environment. “It’s the only thing that hurts me right now (pointing to a dumpster overflowing with rubbish outside Blaisdell). Don’t let it become an eyesore. Then all the positive in it is carried away by what you see… If I’m an upper class student here and I came back to school and they said do your own waste and I’m reluctant I don’t need to things like this to reassure me that it might fail eventually, so hopefully they will clean this up which most likely will happen as this has only been in place since the school started. “We both agree that it will take time. It’s not a one-semester fix, maybe not even a one-year fix. But it can start today.”
So what do you know about what to recycle and what to throw away? Shamelessly, I googled “how to recycle properly”. Fortunately, there are many useful websites. Once on wm.com, Waste Management Recycling 101. It lists three basic rules: recycle cans, bottles, paper and cardboard, keep food and liquids out of your recycling and no loose plastic or bagged recyclables. Now if you still have concerns like me, you scroll down a little further and they break it down into categories. You can even select a specific object, for example if you only want cardboard, metal or glass. And finally, they answered common myths surrounding recycling. All of this information can be found at https://www.wm.com/us/en/recycle-right/recycling-101.
But there were plenty of other websites to check out on how to properly recycle. I know from the start that I was skeptical about it just because. But now I think it’s a great idea that will improve our college.