After working for the Kahuku Recycling Center for a year and a half, Jameson Bradley has come to the conclusion that students do not do the best job of recycling. Bradley is a senior majoring in business management marketing from California.
“Students tend to put things in the recycling bins that don’t belong there,” he said. “They might assume we have the time to go through and sort through the garbage from the actual recycling, but we don’t. If people throw trash in the recycling bins, we end up throwing it all away.”
If he could give two pieces of advice to students, it would be:
- Don’t put dirty diapers in the recycling bins
- Don’t put trash in the recycling bin.
Bradley described how he and his coworkers collect, sort and then recycle cans at the Kahuku Recycling Center. It is a trailer located behind the bank next to Kahuku Grill. He said bottles with “HI 5¢” on them can be turned in at this location for 5 cents each. He stated,“These bottles and cans are basically everything you find in the drink section at Foodland.”
He continued, “5 cents per can isn’t a lot, but when you collect a couple bags, it adds up.” This concept reminded him of the scripture in Alma 37 in the Book of Mormon: “By small and simple things are great things brought to pass.”
“It’s through recycling that I was able to go on my mission,” Bradley stated. He and his dad would collect newspapers and Coke cans from his grandparents. After doing this consistently, “It took a pretty big chunk out to pay for me and my brother’s mission,” he said.
Bradley stated,“It's interesting that we live in a world where people jump to give $5 or $10 to a cause and in return get something they can show off to others, but yet we don’t recycle in our own homes, which is free, and we get something better than a pin in return.”
He continued, “I don’t want to downplay any of the great causes we have going on helping people who are truly in need. It’s great, and it really helps people. But it’s interesting how eager we are to jump in and help, when we ignore something so simple that sits in our own backyard.”
Heather Soules, a junior from the West Coast studying biology, said she picks up a lot of trash on her way home from campus. She explained how she had to pay for recycling in her hometown and that discouraged people from doing it. “We have it for free here,” she stated.
BYU–Hawaii is committed to increasing the beauty and quality of the campus by reducing, reusing, and recycling potential waste products through the recycling program, according to the BYUH recycling page online. It also aims to bring awareness to students, staff, and faculty about the importance of conserving the environment, says the website. It also invites all people, whether staff or students, to support them in their efforts to recycle.
Allison Reece, a junior from Utah majoring in hospitality and tourism management, mentioned how a few things are a little confusing with the way recycling is set up here on campus. “I see the newspaper recycling bins around a lot. Does that mean we can’t throw any other type of recyclable items in there?”
Carlos Speranza, the sustainable program manager, said, “For now, just follow the label.” He said they are working on buying more bins so each material will have its own bin. “We want to make a nice label [to put above the bins] and educate the students because ‘trash’ means something different for everyone.”