Make recycling easier

December 07, 2007 12:45 pm

— The editor:
As a student at Morehead State I received credit in a course doing community service at the Community Recycling Center. Also known as the CRC, the facility is located at 325 Triplett St. in Morehead. The CRC is a non-profit organization that accepts all types of recyclable material including paper, cardboard, steel, aluminum and more.
Due to a limited budget the Community Recycling Center has few employees. Considering the lack of available funds, the progress of the Morehead CRC is commendable. CRC employees work long hours and are left to deal with messes made by others every day.
As a volunteer at the CRC, I experienced the sorting process. Few realize how unglamorous that type of work is. I spent ten hours sorting paper, cutting books, weeding the flower bed, and cleaning up messes. A significant amount of my time was spent sorting through garbage that was put in the recycling bins. I also cleaned up messes that people left in front of the CRC and resorted materials placed in incorrect bins.
Employees at the Recycling Center expressed that this type of sloppy behavior is typical, especially on weekends. They find items in the bins that one would not wish upon their worst enemy. Stories that made me sick to my stomach hardly seemed to faze these workers.
Countless hours are spent each day undoing sorting mistakes and cleaning up the messes people make. The jobs these workers could be more productive if people in the community corrected those mistakes.
So what can we do as recyclers in the community? We can start by sorting materials into the correct bins. Each bin is labeled by category to simplify this process. Glass is not currently accepted at the CRC.
There are no garbage bins at the recycling center. Space is limited; don’t leave your garbage there. Shoes, clothes and other forms of cotton material are not recyclable and should not be dropped off. If the recycling bins are full, place your goods in a bag in front of the desired bin. Rinse the items that contained food to avoid making a mess, and make sure that items no longer have food in them.
These small precautions can help the employees at the CRC as they perform their day-to-day jobs. The extra effort required from the community would be minimal. Employees at the CRC work long and hard with few benefits and low pay to keep the community clean and environment friendly. With our help their jobs can be made easier and more effective.
Kristi Randel
MSU Student