For release: Dec. 21, 2012
News and Media Relations contact: Randy Weiler, 615-898-5616 or Randy.Weiler@mtsu.edu
MTSU Recycling
Program contact: Linda Hardymon, 615-898-2822 or Linda.Hardymon@mtsu.edu
MURFREESBORO — Ah, Christmastime … a time for family,
friends, food and gift-giving. Gifts usually are wrapped in paper, and
cardboard and plastic often are part of the original packing process.
Living rooms,
dens and family rooms can become full of wrapping paper and other clutter that
could be considered trash, but actually should be recycled.
Rather than
having it head for the Rutherford County Landfill in Walter Hill, consider
recycling paper, newspaper, plastic, cardboard and aluminum at the MTSU
community bins on Greenland Drive; any of the 13 county convenience centers;
the Murfreesboro convenience center on West Main Street; or the recycling
center on Haley Road.
“After
Christmas, we would really like people to be conscientious of where they put
their items,” said Linda Hardymon, manager of the MTSU Recycling Program,
recommending that they recycle.
The Greenland
Drive recycling area, which is adjacent to the Tennessee Livestock Center and
near the Dean A. Hayes Track and Soccer Stadium, is open 24 hours a day, seven
days a week. It is not a manned site, “so we depend on people to do it right,”
Hardymon said.
“People are here
at all hours,” said Hardymon, who also serves as assistant manager for the
Center for Energy Efficiency. “We’re glad they come to recycle. We do a really
good job with what we have to work with, and we’re appreciative of everybody
who recycles.”
During the
Christmas and New Year’s holidays and because both MTSU employees and the
recycling companies’ pickup drivers also have time off, Hardymon asks the
public to be considerate when leaving their items at the Greenland Drive
location and to please take not of the posted guidelines.
“We would look
for people to be somewhat more responsible, to sort their things and not leave
their items on the grounds,” Hardymon said. “The recycling materials will be
picked up while we are off.”
Responsibility
would include breaking down cardboard, allowing for more to be placed in bins
by others.
For the
holidays, she said four additional campus cardboard bins will supplement the
six already on the grounds. The Greenland Drive site also includes six
newspaper bins (four small and two larger ones for roll-offs); two bins for
plastics (number symbols 1 to 7); two paper bins; and three magazine bins. (An
online search for “plastics and number symbols” will provide more information
about the Society of Plastics Industry identification coding system.)
There’s also a
metal cage-type unit for people to deposit their aluminum cans and products.
MTSU does not recycle metal cans or glass. Those items can be dropped off at
the city and county sites.
Hardymon
receives student support for the program year-round. In September, they began
wearing MTSU recycling vests “for security and identification,” she said.
This fall’s crop
of students included senior Tyler Carter of Bell Buckle, Tenn.; Dec. 15
graduate and recycling program veteran Nick Booher of Bristol, Va.; graduate
student Daniel Stonebrook of Nashville; senior Tyler Mowery of Ooltewah, Tenn.;
junior Dalton Seagroves of Pleasant View, Tenn.; and Tajuan Levy, a senior
engineering technology major.
Carter, an
animal science major who said he became a recycler after joining the program,
said he wishes people, particularly students, would not toss trash into any
recycling container.
“A lot of
students throw trash, cans and food waste in bins, and we’ll have to sort
through it in buildings,” Carter said.
If the bins are
too contaminated, it just becomes trash, Hardymon added.
Professor
emeritus Dr. Pat Doyle began the recycling program in 1972 as part of a Biology
Club initiative. Before retiring in 2002, he and the program received a
national Daily Point of Light Award in 1999.
For more
information about the program, call 615-898-2822.
To learn more —
including a brief history of how recycling began at MTSU, the program’s
objectives and frequently asked questions and interesting facts — visit http://mtweb.mtsu.edu/cee/MTSU_Recycles.htm.
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Photo captions
Recycling paper200.jpg
Daniel Stonebrook,
left, and Tyler Carter prepare to lift paper and place it in one of the MTSU
Recycling Program bins on Greenland Drive next to the Tennessee Livestock
Center. (Photo by MTSU News and Media Relations)
Recycling cardboard.jpg
Nick Booher, left,
and Dalton Seagroves make room for more cardboard at the MTSU Recycling Program
bins on Greenland Drive adjacent to the Tennessee Livestock Center. (Photo by
MTSU News and Media Relations)
Heading for a
pickup200.jpg
One of the MTSU Recycling
Program’s vehicles heads across campus for another pickup. (Photo by MTSU News
and Media Relations)
Linda Hardymon200.jpg (head-and-shoulders
photo)
Linda Hardymon
Also included are jpeg images for recycling logos and
recycling symbols for plastics.
MTSU is committed to developing a
community devoted to learning, growth and service. We hold these values dear,
and there’s a simple phrase that conveys them: “I am True Blue.” Learn more at www.mtsu.edu/trueblue. For
MTSU news any time, visit www.MTSUNews.com.
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