Jacquelynn Griffith does not recycle, and she’s ashamed to admit it.

But cramming the separating and packing process into her daily grind seems like too much work.

‘I can barely get the regular trash out, let alone recycling,’ said Griffith, a sophomore hospitality management major who lives on South Campus. ‘I feel really bad.’

Neither Griffith nor her friend Rachael Salter, a sophomore policy studies major who also does not regularly recycle, realized that they are breaking New York state law.

‘There’s a law to recycle?’ Salter said. ‘I really didn’t know.’

But while most students of the Syracuse University area do not actively recycle,

about 95 percent of Onondaga County residents participate in Operation Separation, a household solid waste recycling program. They clean, sort and place their glass, metal and paper into two royal blue plastic bins, emblazoned with its complimentary colored orange Operation Separation logo, provided free by the state.

It’s become so much a part of the daily routine that many area residents hardly question their impulse to sort paper or plastic.

‘We’ve been doing it for so long that I don’t even notice,’ said Maureen Dischner, an employee of Food.com and county resident. ‘Everybody does it.’

But not students. It’s likely that they don’t even realize that, in Syracuse, citizens take their recycling seriously, said Andy Brigham, public information spokesperson of the Onondaga County Resource Agency, which handles solid waste management and recycling.

‘Historically we have young adults who come to Syracuse University who come from other parts of the country, if not the world, where recycling is either nonexistent or not that committed in their community,’ Brigham said. ‘We’d be knee-deep in trash without recycling,’

Students who do not recycle are, in fact, breaking New York state law, Brigham said. But he and his organization prefer instead to send a positive message to students.

‘You, your children and your grandchildren are the ones who will really need the resources,’ Brigham said. ‘Quite frankly, you should want to do this.’

The university community produces as much waste as a small city, Brigham said. To reduce the problem, students can check academic buildings for recycling disposals, and check their fraternity house, dorm, or apartment to see if they meet recycling standards.

‘They should want to keep the area they live and go to school in clean,’ said Kurt Frazier, assistant director of materials distribution and warehouse services, which works with campus offices and service departments to handle solid waste. ‘We have to start reusing this and making better uses of our waste. Do the ecological, right thing to do.’

Onondaga County residents have recycled more than six million tons of waste through the program since 1990, an equivalent of more than two million trees or 54 million gallons of oil, Brigham said. This waste would have quickly overwhelmed what was left of the county’s dumping grounds and local incinerator.

The university also recycles and shreds its waste. SMR Fiber Recycling and sister shredding company CompaData take away all of the paper dumped into separate large boxes placed at various locations on campus, Frazier said.

‘We don’t necessarily get too involved with students,’ Frazier said. ‘We just keep the area they live and go to school in clean.’

The program’s success relies on the divide and conquer tenet; residents must separate plastic bottles, metal containers, glass containers, cartons, corrugated cardboard, and all paper products, including paper board and pizza boxes.

Each resident receives a free pair of the royal blue plastic bins. In one bin, residents toss plastic bottles, glass jars, cans, milk containers, aluminum foil, and for the rare few, license plates. In the other, residents load a brown paper bag with all paper, including newspapers, magazines, catalogs, mail, computer paper, school paper, envelopes, lunch bags and even phone books. They can also add cardboard and paper boxes.

Many college students, however, do not want to expend too much energy cleaning and dividing their trash, Brigham said.

‘College age, you’re probably the most preoccupied,’ Brigham said. ‘But if you take a step back, it makes all the sense in the world. Take it back to basics, especially if on South Campus, or the frat house.’

Some off-campus students participate in the program since they live on city streets.

‘It’s good for the environment,’ said Anh Trinh, a graduate student in the College of Law. ‘I think everybody who lives in a house off-campus (recycles).’

Other students who want to recycle but do not own any of the blue bins can call Operation Separation to have free bins delivered, or they can track down someone else’s bin and call the phone number written there. However, there are still some who will stick with their current waste-management plan.

‘No, we’re all set,’ Salter said with a sheepish smile. ‘But I’ll think about it.’

Published on September 1, 2004 at 12:00 pm