About Recycling at Clark
Recycling consists of commodities that fetch a monetary return based on their value as raw materials for various products.
Recycling at Clark has come a long way since 1990, when two students began the recycling program by placing collection bins for paper in residence halls and offices. Now, sixteen years later, the recycling program at Clark is still operated primarily by students, but has expanded to include many other materials as well as assistance from Physical Plant staff and a full-time recycling coordinator.
Recycling Center Location
5 Hawthorne St. (Downing Street parking lot, Hawthorne St. side. Building 44 on the campus map.
Staff
Dave Schmidt '04 is full-time coordinator of recycling, energy conservation, and other campus sustainability issues.
The Recycling Center is staffed by work-study students during the academic year and by a skeleton crew of non-work-study student employees during the summer break. Staff usually consists of seven to nine Recyclers, with one to three Student Managers. This year, there are fifteen recyclers altogether. The staff includes: Danielle Center (Co-Manager), Dominic Pascarelli (Co-Manager), Sam Doran (Co-Manager), Alysa Breyer, Tony Celi, Chelsea Wakeman, Mairead O'Reilly, Keleigh Waldner, Sasha Greenberg, David Wolfenson, Shannon O'Neil, Laura Menzie, Amanda Addeo, Fred Mac Donald, Justine Bernhardt.
Gregg Janda is the Assistant Director of Physical Plant for Building Services. He assists in coordination with custodial staff, and oversees portions of the recycling program that do not necessarily operate through the recycling center staff, such as the composting of yard waste and collection of fluorescent light bulbs and computer monitors for recycling.
History
The Recycling Center is a product of student ingenuity and commitment to social action. Organized by Matt Most '92 and Danny Kallin '92, Clark's recycling program officially began part-time operations in September 1990, and full-time operations during academic year 1991-1992. In 1992, the program moved from a few rooms in the basement of Goddard Library to its current location at 5 Hawthorne Street, and briefly served as a City of Worcester sponsored public drop-off location for recyclables in conjunction with the City's Vision 2000 program.
Over the years, the Recycling Center expanded in order to better serve the University. A new loading dock was installed in February 1993, and the list of accepted materials quickly expanded to include scrap metal, plastic, cardboard, glass, and paper of all types. Recycling Center staff dedicated a room to reuse, collecting used books, office supplies, Styrofoam packing peanuts, and other second hand items for use by the Clark community. (Unfortunately, a need for space forced Recycling staff to eliminate the reuse room in 1998.)
In 1997, a vertical down stroke bailer was installed for use in bailing cardboard, plastics, and shredded paper. Unfortunately, that same year, paper recycling was removed from residential buildings in response to severe contamination. By 2000, in response to a new state law, the Recycling Center began separating cathode ray tubes (CRTs, found in computer monitors and televisions) from scrap metal for recycling as a separate commodity.
In an effort to improve efficiency, the University changed recycling service providers in 2001 from E.L. Harvey & Sons of Westboro to the New Hampshire-based Institutional Recycling Network. By eliminating the need to sort paper by grade (newspaper, copy paper, glossy paper, etc), operations became more streamlined.
January 2004 saw the hire of Clark's first staff member dedicated to recycling and conservation issues on campus. Katrina Rideout '00, MA '01 oversaw the Recycling Center and promoted recycling, reuse, and waste reduction within the Clark community.
In August 2004, paper recycling returned to residence halls and houses! Contamination, unfortunately is still a problem in many locations—please pay attention to the recycling guidelines! If you're unsure what's appropriate for recycling , click on these links to download paper recycling and container recycling guidelines in Adobe Acrobat format.