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December 14, 2007 Posted by: Daniel Hartman

Fall 2007 Report

I am currently putting the finishing touches on my report for the activities during the fall semester independent study class of ENVI209-002. It has been an exciting, rewarding, and exhausting semester, but well worth all of the efforts.

During the semester I assisted Professor Langford with a project of his which sought to connect incoming freshmen class members with the university. In this project, class members placed thirty recycle barrels around the campus for plastic and aluminum items. They then labeled the barrels, collected the deposits, sorted the contents, and deposited them into bins segregated for aluminum and plastic. In this manner the new students learned where the various buildings were on campus and became involved in a community service project. My part of the project was to dispose of the sorted materials, as no provision had been made for transportation of these materials after collection.

After Dr. Langford’s freshman class project was completed, I inherited the barrels and began to manage them on my own. This proved to be a daunting task, as I was already collecting recyclable waste from many dumpsters, both on and off of campus, as well as waste newsprint from the university’s print shop. Not only did I make these collections, but in some cases people noticed my activities and asked me to come to their homes and work places and remove various recyclable goods. Results for the project are as follows:

Plastic recycling has shown to be problematic in that it is very bulky for the weight generated and there is no financial incentive to recycle it to the individual. It must be handled many times and be transported long distances before being re-used, negating much of the positive benefits of recycling it. As evidenced by the plastic collected, the majority of people using plastic water bottles replace the caps, making the bottle very difficult to crush, thus increasing the cost of baling and transporting it, and many leave the containers partly full of water, which skews the weight of the recycled material.

During the semester a new environmentally based student club began the process of organizing and will assist in the management of the recycle barrels in the spring semester. It is my hope that this organization will continue and expand on my work of this semester and I look forward to assisting them in this endeavor. Please continue to monitor this site for news and other items concerning the only place that we have to live in; our earth.

Reference sources used in preparation of this report include, but are not limited to:

http://www.bringrecycling.org/benefits.html

http://www.wastecap.org/wastecap/commodities/steel/steel.htm#Benefitssteel

http://www.wastecap.org/wastecap/commodities/paper/paper.htm#f&f%20paper

http://www.umass.edu/recycle/recycling_benefits.shtml


September 17, 2007- Site update! Posted by: Donald May
We have been busy here at CommerceRecycle! I (Donald May) am still working hard on getting this site done but I am making slow progress.

We have some exciting stuff in the works so check back soon!


April 30, 2007 - A brand new site Posted by: Donald May
Hello and welcome to the home of the Commerce Recycling Project!

Soon this site will have tons of information about our project so please check back soon!