Jarrett Brown

Student Researcher
20224 SE 127th Street
Issaquah, WA 98027

June 21, 2017

Zach Disalvo
Director of Service and Philanthropy
CUB 323 P.O. Box 647204
Pullman, WA 99164

Dear Mr. Disalvo,

The community on the campus of Washington State University needs to improve its
recycling habits in order to decrease landfill waste and increase the amount of postconsumer
materials that can be manufactured.

In order to determine the most effective method of increasing participation in the local
recycling program, research has been conducted in order to determine the reason behind the
apparent lack of recycling activity by students in Pullman. This included contacting the city
council and waste disposal services to determine what efforts have been made thus far to
increase participation. I have found that working with the Greek community and ASWSU to
provide an incentive program will prove to be the most effective method of increasing student
participation in the local recycling program.

Over the past four years in Pullman I have noticed a significant disparity in recycling
habits between Eastern and Western Washington. Growing up in Issaquah, recycling was taken
for granted and it became second nature to sort recyclables from garbage. In Pullman, where
waste from student consumption consists of an abundance of recyclable material including
aluminum, glass, and paper, these resources tend to wind up in the landfill. While recycling
facilities are initially very costly, they decrease the consumption of finite resources. Pullman and
Colfax currently share a facility so increasing recyclable materials would provide a greater return
on investment than is currently produced. From personal observations and conversations with
professors, in general, residents of Pullman consistently recycle while students send all of their
waste to the landfill. In Issaquah, the disposal service issues fines to customers who regularly
place recyclables in the trash. I am unsure of the reason for the lack of recycling in Pullman but it
is likely a social issue stemming from a combination of a lack of easily accessible recycling
locations and an inconvenience for students to separate recyclable materials from the rest of their
garbage.
 Recycling is not a new concept. In fact, archaeologists have traced it as far back as 400
BC where glass was melted down to be reused. Early Romans recycled coins into statues which
could be sold at a higher monetary value than the original coins. In the past, a great emphasis
was placed on recycling during times of distress such as war, famine, illness, and economic
depression and the long term effects have been noted by less waste remains found from those
times than from times of prosperity. This is not to say that recycling is only necessary in desolate
times however, it shows that recycling provides an economical and efficient method of
recirculating old materials into the market while decreasing the need to process new resources.
As it became easier and cheaper to produce goods after the industrial revolution, it also became
easier to throw away used items and simply purchase new objects. While it may require less
effort in the short term, throwing away items requires the constant consumption of new, often
non-renewable resources. World War II played a tremendous role on increasing recycling and it
even created a sense of patriotism in reducing waste.

Research has previously been conducted on this topic. In 1981, Paul D. Luyben and
Susan Cummings published Motivating Beverage Container Recycling on a College Campus
in the Journal of Environmental Systems. In it, they discuss their findings that college students
are heavily motivated by raffles and other types of participation contests. Unfortunately, this is
not a long term solution considering that as soon as the motivation of a reward is taken away,
participation in the recycling program would likely drop below that of prior to the reward. Many
of the sources that I have found thus far are focused on establishing recycling and composting
programs in new areas. Whitman County and the City of Pullman have already gone to great
lengths to establish a recycling program and have been successful in promoting community
involvement. In this case, the challenge lies in encouraging college students, who cycle out every
four years, to actively participate. Introducing an incentive based recycling program would help
to reward freshmen who make it a point to recycle and this habit may carry over into the rest of
their collegiate careers after leaving the dormitory.

The primary sources for my research were Pullman Public Works Department and
Pullman Disposal Service. They did not provide me with specific numbers of the differences
between recycling habits of permanent residents and WSU students but they did agree with my
observation that WSU students should be contributing a far larger percentage of Pullmans
recycling. Over the past ten years, their main focus has been on encouraging participation from
permanent residents and the university. They are satisfied with the results from this and over the
past few years have begun to put more resources toward encouraging student participation. This
includes putting more recycling dumpsters on College Hill to provide easily accessible locations
for students to recycle. I have also talked with past and current students about their recycling
habits while at school and the general consensus was that they were willing to recycle but did not
consider it important enough to go out of their way to separate recycling from garbage or to seek
out locations to dispose of them separately. When I compared the responses from Greek and non-
Greek students, it appeared that Greek students were less likely to recycle their waste. The vast
majority of the research conducted was qualitative, not quantitative because of the difficulty in
finding available resources. Due to this, the recommendations made are meant to provide an
initial plan of action. I will be able to conduct more research after this school year to determine
the effectiveness of our actions.

My research suggests that the greatest hurdle in increasing recycling from students will
be providing them with sufficient information such that they appreciate the importance of
decreasing their direct contributions to the landfill. With the City of Pullman increasing the
amount of recycling dumpsters in student-residential areas, students will have to increase their
participation in order for the city to justify servicing more dumpsters. In the weeks leading up to
the start of the Fall semester, the Associated Students of Washington State University (ASWSU)
and the Center for Fraternity and Sorority Life (CFSL) should work in concert to create a big
push for current and incoming students to properly dispose of their recyclable waste.

Each year, all incoming freshmen are required to attend many beneficial programming
events such as Booze, Sex, and Reality Checks. During each of these events, a small amount of
time should be dedicated to informing students of which materials are recyclable and the direct
benefits of recycling within their community along with explaining that all blue, recycling
dumpsters are open to students use. This will provide every round of incoming students with
motivation to recycle. It would also be beneficial for CFSL to work with the Center for Civic
Engagement (CCE) to create a bylaw that if a greek-affiliated chapter contributes a certain
amount toward recycling, their members can be rewarded with a portion of their required
community service hours. Considering that some of the biggest offenders are those in the Greek
community, this would encourage them to increase their recycling.

My final recommendation is for the Pullman Disposal Service to issue fines to residents
who consistently send their recyclable materials to the landfill. While it may be difficult to
determine how to issue fines to apartment complexes which violate the rule, the majority of
college students will do whatever it takes to avoid being fined. I am waiting to hear back from
King County Waste Management to determine how they issue this fine to group housing
complexes such as apartments and condominiums but I plan to pass this information along to
Pullman Disposal Services.

I urge ASWSU and CFSL to take these suggestions into consideration for the upcoming
school year. Please feel free to contact me with any questions, comments, or concerns. I would
also be more than happy to send contact information for the Pullman Disposal Service and the
Public Works Department.
Sincerely,

Jarrett Brown
(206) 450-7925
jarrett.brown@wsu.edu
Resources:

History of Recycling. (n.d.). Retrieved June 19, 2016, from http://www.all-recycling-

facts.com/history-of-recycling.html

How To Establish Recycling and Composting Programs. (2002, May). Retrieved June 19, 2016,
from https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/wycd/waste/downloads/recycle.pdf

Luyben, P. D., & Cummings, S. (n.d.). Motivating Beverage Container Recycling on a College
Campus. Journal of Environmental Systems, 11(3), 235-245. doi:10.2190/h6cn-x6f7-
ckm5-f1ma

"Let's improve your waste recycling program." Busch Systems Resource Center. N.p., n.d. Web.
19 June 2017.