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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 2, 1995)
THURSDAY WEATHER: Today - 60% chance of light snow. North wind 15 to 25 mph. Tonight - Partly cloudy. Low in the mid teens. COVERING THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA SINCE 1901 VOL. 95 NO. 53 - — . . .November 2, 1995_ Angela Heywood/DN UNL recycling coordinator Dale Ekart and UNL garbage collector Bill Allerheinligen look for recyclable material in dumpsters behind NU Mail Services early Wednesday morning. Rubbish recyclers dig results By Paula Lavigne Senior Reporter On a drizzly Wednesday morning, Dale Ekart digs through trash. But it isn’t rubbish to him — it’s a job. i Dressed in patched jeans, a sweat shirt and gloves, Ekart and Bill Allerheinligcn left their homes before dawn to investigate dumpsters at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Ekart oversees the university’s 2-year-old recycling program. And Allerheinligen, a land scape services employee, has been picking up the university’s trash for about 30 years. The two are trying to find out if the univer sity is recycling what it should. If they find rccyclables in the trash, it is not. The four main products the university re cycles are: cardboard, mixed office paper, newspaper and wood pallets. Independent agen cies recycle aluminum cans on campus. UNL has one of the 10 most efficient recy cling programs in the country, Ekart said, and it is getting better. Ekart issued a report at last week’s deans and directors meeting that showed the 1995-96 fiscal year would be the first year the recycling program would turn a profit. To do that, Ekart and Allerheinligen have to do the dirty work. About twice a year, Ekart, who has a recy cling business in Beatrice, examines about 300 UNL dumpsters per week — about 60 per day. Ekart and Allerheinligen circle campus in a noisy dump truck, stopping at every campus building from residence halls to Love Library. The dump truck hoists the dumpster in the air and with a clattering cacophony, drops it to the ground. The clues appear. From the dumpster behind Henzlik Hall, Ekart held up a Dr. Pepper can. “This shouldn’t have been thrown out,” he said. “This should have been recycled.” When repeated violations show up in a dumpster, Ekart said, he gives a note to a building supervisor to tell the people who use the building they need to recycle. Ekart found two cardboard boxes in a dumpster behind the Military and Naval Sci ence building. The boxes still had their mail ing labels on them, and the recycling sleuths had their man. “They get caught,” Allerheinligen said with confidence. He said he worked for six months trying to find out the names of a couple who were throwing their personal trash in the university’s dumpsters. “I knew this guy all the way down to the salad dressing he ate,” he said. “They had a baby during this time, too. I could tell by the diapers.” 4- The couple slipped up when the woman threw away the bottle from her birth control ■ pills, Allerheinligen said. Her name was on the prescription. Ekart said he and Allerheinligen have found a bizarre mix of items from animal carcasses in the residence hall dumpsters to empty beer cans in administrative building dumpsters. They’ve found a few dangerous items like dirty syringes and needles, Ekart said, so they are careful about how they handle the trash. He said he’s learned how to handle crushed glass and safely dig through a dumpster. “You don’t just stick your hands in it,” he said. “You tend to look at it more than anything else.” A literally hands-on approach was the best way to measure the university’s recycling ef fort. “If you don’t look in the garbage,” Ekart said, “you don’t know what there is.” The dirtiest dumpsters are at the residence halls, Allerheinligen said, but he said he didn’t mind the sometimes smelly work. “There’s this stigma of garbage being messy,” he said. “The way it’s handled nowa days, it’s not that big of a deal. The two routes take about eight hours each morning. A sense of humor gets them through the day, Ekart said. As Allerheinligen dumped a dumpster of trash into his truck, scattered papers, a Coke can and a squashed lemon fell to the ground. “A good operator doesn’t make a mess,” Ekart said, laughing. Allerheinligen jokingly whacked him with a broom. “I didn’t make a mess,” he said, laughing, as the two swept up the debris. Before Allerheinligen met Ekart, he did not recycle, but garbage sleuthing changed his mind. “It’s the thing of the future,” Allerheinligen said. Midwest cooperation wins UNL a transportation grant Rebecca Pitmans Staff Reporter Big Eight universities may op pose each other on the playing field, but cooperation on other surfaces this year won UNL a big payoff — $1 million, to be exact. A proposal written by the Univer - sity of Nebraska-Lincoln and four other universities won UNL a $1 million surface transportation grant from the U.S. Department of Trans portation. It also made UNL the new home of the Mid-America Transpor tation Center, which opened in Sep tember. The center is one of 13 across the nation that make up the University Transportation Centers Program, es tablished by the Department of Trans portation in 1987. MATC improves the design and operation of surface transportation, including highways, railroads and pipelines, said Patrick McCoy, professor of civil engineer ing. Iowa State University was the site of MATC until 1987, McCoy said. The Department of Labor allowed institutions to compete for the center last year. UNL, Kansas State Univer sity, the University of Kansas, the University of Missouri-Columbia and the University of Missouri-Rollacom peted together. _ . The “regional thrust” of ffie~pro posal was the key factor in moving the site, McCoy said. S “Iowa pretty much kept every thing to themselves,” he said. The grant money, which totaled $2 million when matched with non federal funds, and information gained from the center will be shared be tween the universities, McCoy said. UNL will receive half the money -because it is the lead institution, he said. —The value of having the MATC at UNL is not j ust monetary, said Sarny Elias, associate dean for engineering research. “There’s only 13 centers around the country and now we have one,” he said. “We’re recognized as a cen ter of excellency. That attracts stu dents, faculty and more money.” During the first year of the grant, McCoy said, the money will be used in three areas: education, research and shared technology. More courses will be taught via See GRANT on 3 Virtual path leads Raikes to Microsoft By Paula Lavigne Senior Reporter It’s the story of a Nebraska farm boy who purchases an Apple II computer in college and becomes a Microsoft executive working for the richest man in America. Jeff Raikes wanted to go «■■■ nPAPiiw back to his farm in Ashland NU KtutNId after graduation, but in stead he accepted a job with a small Seattle computer company in 1981. He interviewed with a man named Bill Gates. Fourteen years later. Gates would be the richest man in America, and Microsoft would be a household name. And Raikes, who thought he would be work ing on agricultural policies for the U.S. De partment of Agriculture, is now one of Microsoft’s top engineers. Raikes, 37, will return to his home state Friday and give his presentation, “The Virtual University,” to the NU Board of Regents at 1 p.m. in Vamer Hall. From the start, he has considered himself a lucky man. He is the youngest of five children, he said, and the son of parents who were “really, really, really big believers in the importance of an education.” His brothers and sisters have master’s de grees from prestigious universities across the country. His brother, Ronald Raikes, who lives in Lincoln, has a doctorate in agricultural eco nomics from the University of California at Davis and taught at Iowa State University before returning to take over the family farm. Oddly enough, Raikes’ said, his bachelor’s degree from Stanford University in California makes him the least educated of his siblings. But Raikes is the star of his small graduating class at Ashland High School. Only about 12 students went on to higher education, he said, and he was the only one who left the Midwest. His father encouraged him to go out of state, he said. His father stressed that business was important to agriculture and suggested he con sider going to Stanford. His father, Ralph Raikes, has since passed away, but his mother, Alice Raikes, still lives on the Ashland farm. The couple encouraged their children to go to college, his mother said, and her husband even took his daughters to interview at col leges on the East Coast. At Stanford, his farm background brought Raikes together with the head of the graduate program — a man who used to be a Missouri hog farmer. Raikes said he was used as a guinea pig for Stanford’s experimental undergraduate engi neering economics program. During his senior year, Raikes made plans to join his older brother on the farm. His See RAIKES on 3
