Recycling costly, but not to students

Rebel Recycling is located off Flamingo Road at 4505 S. Maryland Parkway. File photo

Despite the benefits of recycling on the environment, many students and faculty don’t know the cost behind Rebel Recycling.

Tara Pike is the Solid Waste and Recycling Manager, one of five full-time employees and 11 student workers in the Rebel Recycling Program, a program that spent over $360,000 last year in operations costs.

UNLV students pay a $1 recycling fee every fall and spring session since 1995, which directly funds the program’s activities and totals approximately $55,000 a year. The program continues into the summer session, but students are not charged a recycling fee.

“Most of the recycling fee is used for salaries and employee benefits,” Pike said. “If there is any money left, it goes for equipment repair.”

The program paid approximately $250,000 to its employees last year, she said.

Pike confirmed that Rebel Recycling processed 653 tons of materials in 2007, a figure posted on the Rebel Recycling Program Web site.

The recycling program earned approximately $100,000 in revenue from recycling in 2007, Pike said. That revenue paid for much-needed equipment and repairs.

Revenue and fees totaled approximately $155,000. The program experienced a $200,000 deficit that was picked up by the custodial department of which the program is a part.

The recycling fee is rather small according to some students.

“They could increase [the fee] to $5 and I wouldn’t care,” said Madison Allgeier, a UNLV senior who also recycles at home.

Federal and state grants have alleviated some of the costs in the past. Even with the monetary funds that the program receives, it still needs help.

A large portion of the program’s help comes from an unlikely source mandated community service.

“Without the court-ordered community [service] people the program wouldn’t last long,” Pike said.

Rebel Recycling began to use the help of people serving a sentence of community service in Jan. 1999, but it has not been easy on the program.

All of the community service people are temporary and the size of the crew varies, Pike said.

Since the program’s inception in 1995, Rebel Recycling has not had much success in obtaining help from students. In fact, the program has had only one student volunteer.

Sitting in her office, Pike pointed to an attractive model in an advertisement that hangs from one of her walls.

“She has been our only volunteer. That’s why we keep her picture up there,” Pike said of the former UNLV student.

Personnel costs are not the only expenses of the program.

Exhaust emitted by the diesel truck and forklift used by the program have an environmental impact but are minimal if not almost non-existent. Those emissions are easily off set by the materials recycled by the program, Pike said.

Recycling is seen by some as a solution to limited natural resources and increasing pollution.

“Environmental engineering focuses on developing solutions to problems in the environment and recycling is part of it,” said Thomas Piechota, chair of the civil and environmental engineering department at UNLV.

Ease of use is another benefit to the Rebel Recycling Program.

“It’s convenient. I don’t see every student taking their empty plastic bottles home to recycle,” Allgeier said of the recycling bins found on campus.

Recycling provides other benefits besides environmental solutions. Financial incentives have proved that recycling can be a viable solution.

“We save the campus in avoided landfill fees and shredding costs of about $100,000,” Pike said.

One can save and even make money by recycling, said Piechota who has a recycling bin in his office.

The implementation of the Rebel Recycling Program by the university is not where it should be, Pike said.

In a recent College Sustainability Report Card, UNLV received a “C” grade for the campus but only a “D” in food and recycling, according a Web site published by the Sustainability Endowments Institute.

Students do not even know about the program’s efficacy.

“I don’t know if it’s effective or not. It’s not like it’s publicized [on campus],” Allgeier said.

The recycling program operates from two bungalows, which were not intended to be used as recycling facilities. An efficient, permanent facility would require fewer personnel and would process more recyclables, Pike said.

Presently, none of the schools and departments of the university are required to recycle but are only asked to participate. Pike wants to see recycling become mandatory for the entire campus. She would like to manage the solid waste operations.

Recycling is more than just production of revenue. It is a way to maintain our sustainability, or our ability to live, especially in a desert like Las Vegas, Pike said.