The numbers are huge!

From January 27 to April 7, each student, faculty and staff member at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory – 454 full-time, 163 part-time – placed an average of 101 pounds of bottles, cans and paper into their various campus recycling bins. Paper comprised 89.96 pounds of this total.

This activity translates to more than 31 tons of recycled materials collected over the 10 weeks, two first place wins – in the Per Capita Classic and paper recycling competitions, and a third place in the Grand Championship competition. LDEO, in Palisades, NY, competed with 201 other colleges and universities nationwide, all of them working toward Recyclemania’s goal of raising campus consciousness about recycling and reducing waste.

In Recyclemania’s final weeks, however, as trucks hauled more and more pounds of recyclables to the Millburn, NY, recycling facility, then the final numbers were computed and LDEO emerged as a big winner, excitement over growing potential for Recyclemania wins was tempered by the environmental implications of the growing numbers.

So now, the conversation at LDEO, particularly within the Campus Life Committee, is centered on waste minimization: about reducing the waste stream – paper, in particular – as conscientiously and deliberately as it has been recycled.

'As a world leading research institution that studies the earth and its environment, I am heartened that our staff take their personal responsibility towards environmental stewardship so seriously - it sets an example to be proud of,' says Michael Purdy, director of LDEO. 'Now I’m equally proud of their commitment to taking sustainability here to an even higher level.'

Andrew Goodwillie, an LDEO associate research scientist, says 'the numbers are terrific and the ability to push the recycling effort is amazing, especially when we compare so favorably with other large institutions – huge universities the size of towns. The downside shows we have to be better at using paper.'

Tom Eberhard, manager of the LDEO Traffic Department, directs the collection of recyclables and their transport to the municipal recycling facility in Rockland County, NY. In the final week of Recyclemania alone, members of his department collected 14,000 pounds of paper from the campus.

'I guess from my view,' Eberhard says, 'it concerns me that people are using so much paper and that even with all our computers we’re certainly not becoming a paperless society.'

Goodwillie noted a Recyclemania week that generated an unusually large amount of paper because it straddled a National Science Foundation project deadline 'for which people churned out multiple copies.'

Although he’s completely committed to recycling and sustainability efforts, Goodwillie says he can’t imagine not occasionally needing a hard copy of a document. But, he says,

'We have to be more aware. Rather than send everything to the printer, we need to ask, ‘Do we really need to print it out?’'

Patrick O’Reilly is assistant director for Facilities and Engineering at LDEO. He and Mary Reagan, deputy director of operations for the Borehole Research Group and chairperson of LDEO’s Campus Life Committee, have been 'the real force behind the Recyclemania efforts,' says Jason Smerdon, a post-doctoral fellow and a member of the Campus Life Committee. 'They did all the heavy lifting.'

In the competition’s aftermath, O’Reilly shares the concern about the need to take recycling activity to a new level.

'Our Campus Life Committee is already brainstorming ways to reduce. To date we are considering a campaign to get folks to unsubscribe to junk mail and periodicals that may no longer be as valuable as information sources as they once were before the Internet. We are thinking about getting folks to think before they hit the print button – perhaps the file is better left on disk than in the file cabinet. We’re hoping to persuade managers to unsubscribe to monthly printouts from the University’s accounting system and rely on the Web interface the University has provided.

LDEO’s second goal, O’Reilly says, was to take the first Columbia University step into Recyclemania. 'We entered the contest as the flagship for Columbia University. Next year we hope to set sail anonymously as just one ship in the entire Columbia University fleet. We are hopeful that our efforts, and our success, will provide some inspiration to everyone at the University to enjoy and be benefited by this valuable learning experience.'

(Photographs Top to Bottom: Members of LDEO's Traffic Department load their dump truck with more than a ton of paper headed to the Rockland County Recycling Facility. From left are: Carlos Baez, Antonio DeLoatch and Robert Daly. Photograph by Patrick O'Reilly.

Traffic Supervisor Robert Daly helps keep Recyclemania momentum in high gear at the LDEO Administration Building. Photograph by Patrick O'Reilly.

LDEO's Traffic Department takes a break on the loading dock. From left are: Carlos Baez; Patricia Ables; Thomas Eberhard, Traffic Manager; Robert Daly, Traffic Supervisor; Jonathan Chazen (standing); and Antonio DeLoatch. Absent are Maurice Mack and Juan Torres. Photograph by Bruce Gilbert.)