Over the years, UNI has done its part to attempt to be an environmentally conscious university.

In fact, according to the UNI website, “the Princeton Review has recognized UNI as one of the country’s most environmentally-responsible colleges in the ‘The Princeton Review’s Guide to 322 Green Colleges-2012’.”

Recycling on campu  has played a large part in this role, with changes being made to UNI’s recycling program just this past year.

The Physical Plant has been working towards maintaining UNI’s “Green College” title. Over the past two years, the amount of recycling at UNI has seen a large increase. The Physical Plant has taken on the challenge of making recycling easy for easier for everyone on campus.

According to the Physical Plant’s director, Mike Zwanziger, the plant has been testing out new ways to improve the methods of recycling and thus came up with a new way to implement recycling within the university.

Instead of having to separate cans, paper, cardboard, glass and plastic into different containers, students can now put all recyclable items in one bin.

According to Zwanziger, UNI’s Physical Plant worked closely with the Department of Residence in order to develop this new method.

“In 2013,” said Zwanziger, “we started [examining the] Department of Residence’s [previous method of] recycling. They had a company come in and sort out their recycling, but it was costing quite a bit to have them come over and pick up all these containers.”

Zwanziger said that faculty and students alike were fond of being able to recycle, rather than throw everything in the trash.

Ultimately, when people became more aware of the recycling process and the students began to comment on the negatives of it, the DOR realized that with the infrastructure and resources in place, they were ready to take the next step towards a more effienct recycling program and spread it aacross campus.

Students have taken notice of UNI’s recycling efforts, especially in the dorms. One such student is Stephanie Smith, a senior computer science major who currently resides in Panther Village.

“One of my favorite things about PV is that everything is right there for you. Each floor has its own recylcing and trash room so you can just run down the hall real fast and empty your recycling with ease,” Smith said.

UNI invested in new special bins, which are divided into two sides, one black and one blue. The blue part of the bin represents recycling while the black part of it refers to disposables. Now all  recyclable items, except glass and Styrofoam, can be deposited into the blue side of the bin to be recycled, and all the other wastes can go into the black, or landfill, side of the bin.

“I see [the new bins] all the time walking to class and so if I have a bottle with me, it’s as easy as dropping it in one of those,” Smith said.

According to Zwanziger, the university saves up to $30 per ton on recycling through this process.

“Instead of spending $42.25 for dumping it into the transfer station, we pay $12 for dropping the wastes at the [recycling] company and they sort it out and take it for recycling,” said Zwanziger

As far on the system as a whole, Zwanziger stated that “recycling is only as good as the students want it to be.”