The Office of Sustainability’s Waste Management Student Intern Team is unveiling a new soft plastic recycling pilot program in support of Virginia Tech’s Climate Action Commitment goal of achieving zero-waste campus status by 2030. The product of a partnership between the Office of Sustainability within the Division of Campus Planning, Infrastructure, and Facilities and Virginia Tech Housing and Residence Life, the three new recycling bins — located in Squires Student Center, Ambler-Johnston commons, and the Creativity and Innovation District Living-Learning Program — accept a range of soft plastics, including plastic grocery bags, single-use sandwich bags, cereal bags, and more.
Most recycling bins on the Blacksburg campus are only meant to collect plastics that are coded one and two, such as bottles and food containers. When other types of plastics, such as grocery bags, end up mixed into these bins, it contributes to waste contamination within the recycling stream, can slow down recycling operations, or cause properly recycled items to be thrown out due to contamination.
Student interns experienced this dilemma firsthand on a tour of Recycling and Disposal Solutions (RDS) last semester, the Roanoke facility where recycling from the Blacksburg campus and the New River Valley is processed. “Contamination in the waste stream is one of the main problems that we’re working on improving within the Virginia Tech community. The facility tour really highlighted the need for clear labeling on our recycling containers, standalone soft plastic recycling bins, and more consumer education. We learned that machinery can be shut down for hours due to recycling contamination,” said Madison Norman, a sophomore majoring in environmental conservation and society within the College of Natural Resources and the Environment and leader of the Waste Management Student Intern Team.