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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 19, 1992)
Program keeps recyclable trash from going in landfills Recycling consultant says current curbside programs are good idea, but costly By Andy Raun Staff Reporter A simple, all-inclusive recycling program would make belter economic and environmen tal sense for Lincoln and other U.S. cities than conventional curbside programs, a Tennessee recycling expert said Friday. John van dcr Harst, a Nashville solid waste man agement consultant, said a two-stream, wct/dry recy cling program, under which commercial and residential waste generators would sepa rate hazardous waste and compostable matter from clean, dry waste, would reduce the volume being buried in land fills and yield a greater recovery rate for reus able materials. In ihc wet/dry program, wet waste — tood scraps, soiled paper products, yard waste and the like — is pul through a three-week composting process, then screened and allowed to cure lor a year before being sold to farmers or others. Dry waste is sorted manually or mechanically and recycled if possible. Curbside recycling programs, under which such items as plastic milk jugs, metal and newsprint arc sorted out by the waste genera tor, arc a step in the right environmental direc tion, but participation and recovery rates arc loo low and per-ton recycling costs arc loo high, van der Harst said. Van der Harst, who has lived in Nashville for 11 years, is a solid waste management consult ant for Nashville, Tcon., and Davidson County. He also has been a consultant for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance in Washington, D.C. In the last three years, van dcr Harst has traveled to about 25 states and Canada to study more than 1 (X) local recycling programs. He was in Nebraska for the Nebraska Slate Recy cling Conference in Omaha, and he traveled to Lincoln to speak to about a dozen students and staff members in an East Campus meeting I sponsored by Ecology Now. In pilot wet/dry programs, up to 98 percent of the recyclable and compostable materials have been removed from the waste stream and kept out of landfills, he said. Recovery rates in pilot wet/dry programs arc at least 50 percent higher than those achieved under conventional programs, he said. But because the wet/dry program eliminates steps such as sorting yard waste from food scraps, the quality of compost produced can be poorer than that produced under conventional programs, van der Harst said. Two-stream wet/dry recycling already is common in Europe. North America’s first such full-scale operation is being built in Guelph, Ontario, a city of 137,000 residents. Once that operation is on line, other communities can watch its progress, van dcr Harst said. Two M innesota cities arc using three-stream wet/dry programs, and debate is raging among recycling experts about whether two-stream or three-stream programs are better, van der Harst f Under a three-stream program, the dry waste is separated into recyclable and non-recyclablc bins, and the non-recyclablcs arc sent to the * landfill. Van dcr Harst said those who supported the three-cycle program were buying into propa ganda disseminated by businesses and indus tries that could make more money off the three- ( stream program. I He said American companies that opposed | wet/dry recycling were trying to line their pockctbooks without any real regard for the L environment. . Americans interested in implementing the J most efficient recycling programs must over- j come corporate sway and go straight to their elected officials, he said. , “This is a classic citizen vs. industry fight,” | he said. , Regardless of its effect on established busi- < k nesses, society would fare better with wet/dry recycling systems, vkn dcr Harst said. I “In the long run, we will be ahead with the j high-recovery system — in ways not the least of which is quality of life,” he said. ■---1 Keep positive, speaker says By Heather Sinor Staff Reporter_ * * The most critical value issue facing the University of Nebraska-Lincoln today is how people treat and react to one another, the AS UN president said. Andrew Sigerson spoke Friday at the East Campus Union as part of the Food for Thought fall series, titled “Weighty Matters that Can’t Wait: Critical Value Issues for UNL in 92-93.” j Sigerson said peoplt/could see the dam aging effects of how they had been treating one another in several recent campus events, such as the disappearance of Candice Harms. He also asked, “What possessed a man with a gun to walk into class?” and “What possessed people to gather around one an other in frontof the (Nebraska) Union around an evangelical preacher and yell in each other’s face?” Sigerson cited campus theft, acquain tance and date rape and the breakdown of minority relations as reasons to demand that people treat one another with more respect. Students come to the university molded by different ideas, beliefs and values, Sigerson said, and they must find ways to overcome differences that arc damaging. He said educating students through a mandatory multicultural class, however, was not the solution. “I’m not going to remember the book I read in a college class,” he said. “I’m going to remember the Rodney King riots and the man with the gun.” Sigerson said he favored integrating multiculturalism within existing classes. Within sororities and fraternities, Sigerson said, diversity is almost null. The application procedure encourages white men and women to apply, he said. It’s neither unusual nor bad for people to want to be around others like themselves, Sigerson said, as long as they respect others’ values. Sigerson said the way to overcome treat ing one another badly was to have a positive attitude. “Things aren’t so bad,” he said. “Instead of telling graduating seniors how difficult the job market is right now, why don’t we instead focus on how many students do get jobs?” If students are upset about a problem, Sigerson said, they should fight for what they think is right in a positive way. He said he believed the situation with former English professor Joyce Joyce, an African-American who left the university over an academic freedom dispute, was healthy for UNL. “It gels us thinking,” he said. The fall Food for Thought luncheon pro gram on East Campus is sponsored by the United Ministries in Higher Education at UNL, the UNL Lutheran Center and St. Mark’s on-thc-campus Episcopal Church, in cooperation with the UNL program in ' religious studies. Sigerson was the second of three speak ers in the program. UNL Chancellor Gra ham Spanicr is scheduled to speak Nov. 20. Standards Continued from Page 1 Gricsen said the recommendations for the iniversity system and UNL already had been mblished, but the University of Nebraska at )maha and the University of Nebraska at Ceamey still were completing their proposals. UNL requirements are more stringent than he universitywide recommendations, he said. JNO also is likely to require stricter standards han the requirements set by the university, he aid. UNL standards will require high school graduates to complete four years of English, our years of mathematics, three years of social studies, three years of natural sciences, two ^ears of a foreign language and one year of another unit, preferably performing arts, to be admitted in fall 1997. The current standards require four years of language arts, including three years of English, and two years of math, natural sciences and social studies. By 1994, Gricscn said, UNL proposed to require its freshmen cither to be in the lop half of their graduating class or receive a score of 20 on their ACT. This was in addition to the completion of the 10 units now required by UNL. Gricsen said he thought the tougher stan dards would belter prepare students for college academics. “I’m not sure we’re doing anyone a favor when we admit them and then promptly fail them,” he said. BUSKER FANS! Can't find a room in Norman? Join us at.... i( AIRPORT-MERIDIAN IN OKLAHOMA CITY 4 Official Cornhusker Fan Headquarters! , Just 35 minutes away from O.U. i 4712 W. I-40 OKC, OK 73128 405-947-8721 $29.95 1-4 People Free Continental Breakfast Free HBO and Cable RESERVE OrriCERS* TRAINING CORPS MY DEGREE GOT ME THE INTERVIEW. ARMY ROTC GOT ME THE JOB. Things got pretty competitive for this job. I’m sure my college degree and good grades kept me in the running. 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