The University of Manitoba Students’ Union’s recycling and environmental group, UMREG, will be transferring some of its current duties over to Physical Plant this term, in an attempt to develop an overall stronger recycling program for the university.
The University of Manitoba Students’ Union (UMSU) president Heather Laube explained that UMSU, with consultation and support from UMREG, has been collaborating with the university’s administration to develop a stronger, more comprehensive and centralized recycling program.
The transition is an ongoing process with the logistics of any proposed changes to the current structure of the program still being discussed.
The current program sees UMREG running the university’s beverage container recycling program, while Physical Plant oversees all other recycling and waste management.
“UMREG still exists and will continue to be active on environmental initiatives and recycling on campus now and into the future,” Laube said.
Physical Plant sustainability coordinator Maire McDermott explained that, currently, Physical Plant oversees all forms of recycling excluding beverage containers, as well as waste collection.
“All the paper from cardboard to office paper, anything to do with paper we recycle,” said McDermott.
In addition to paper, Physical Plant recycles a wide variety of materials ranging form fluorescent lamps, cell phones and computers, to batteries.
McDermott explained the change is motivated by trying to centralize the recycling program.
“It’s a more user-friendly program, if it was managed by one group instead of two,” said McDermott.
McDermott said that UMREG will still be involved, because the recycling program affects everyone and student involvement is needed. After the transition is completed, it will still be students working and doing what they did for UMREG in regards to the beverage container program, but now they will be working for Physical Plant.
UMREG coordinator Anders Annell explained that UMREG originally began as a student group in the late ’80s, recycling paper. It then grew to include simple beverage containers, and now even does some composting.
“[UMREG] was a group started to recycle what they could, when they could, as much as they could,” said Annell.
Like the current transition of duties to Physical Plant, UMREG passed the reins of paper recycling over to Physical Plant in 1994. Annell explained that this increased the recycling of paper ten-fold, because Physical Plant had more access and resources.
The university has been offered some funds to increase the beverage container-recycling rate, which is aimed at putting more bins in more places throughout the university campus.
Under the current agreement UMSU is technically the employer of UMREG employees, so students are employed to do the recycling. Yet because of the timing of the transition, “a portion of our trained staff will actually become the workforce for Physical Plant,” said Annell
Before the transition, UMREG employees picked up all the bins at every building by hand, on both the Fort Garry campus and the Bannatyne campus. The bins would then be brought back to UMREG’s headquarters in the Helen Glass Centre,
where the material would be sorted by hand into 11 categories, explained Annell.
The sorted materials would then be transferred to a third party company within Winnipeg that usually shipped it to another city where it was actually processed.
Since the transition began, UMREG has moved away from hand sorting, with a third party company enlisted by the university to sort the materials.
Annell said the transition can be considered completed when the labour switches hands, on the last day students do work under UMREG and the first day students are paid by Physical Plant.
Annell speculated that this will be in late February, but pointed out that it’s all an ongoing process. “That’s sort of why this transition is able to take place, because UMREG is very flexible,” said Annell.
Annell said students can watch the transition take effect, as more recycling bins pop-up on campus.
Ophelia Morris, Physical Plant’s waste prevention coordinator, reported that during the April 1, 2009 to March 31, 2010 fiscal year, 1,904 metric tonnes of solid waste was generated on campus. This includes both garbage and recycling.
Of this, 1,496 metric tonnes were sent to landfill, 394 tonnes were recycled and 41 tonnes composted. This is down 13.38 per cent from the previous fiscal year.
