Ole Miss campus doesn't recycle nearly enough

KEITH WRIGHT
DM Staff Columnist

The United States consumes approximately 30 percent of all the materials produced in the world, though we only comprise five percent of the world's population. Sadly, most of the stuff we are producing ends up in the landfill. The United States is choking on "planned obsolescence," a policy of designing things poorly. Consequently, many things don't last very long and therefore get thrown away. My father built a television set that lasted twenty-five years. Today, they last about ten, and then they land in the dump.

Judging from last week's DM article on recycling, that's not all that's landing in the dump. Several people have asked me over the past year what I think about the fact that the contents of Ole Miss' recycling bins are being placed in the dumpsters and going to the dump. "Well, that's a crying shame," I thought. Here's why.

First, let's look at paper. Paper is produced from trees. Duh. Everyone knows that. But did you know that 58 percent of all the paper we produce ends up in the dump? It takes 24 trees to produce a ton of paper. In this, the age of global warming, we need trees. Trees act as a carbon sink. They extract carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas, from our atmosphere and use it in photosynthesis. Those 24 trees that went into the ton of paper could also be used to remove 250 pounds of carbon dioxide every year.

Furthermore, we are losing strands in the web of life at a rate unprecedented since the extinction of the dinosaur. This has some people rather concerned about humanity's future to feed itself. The forests aren't just carbon sinks for a species gone mad over fuel-inefficient vehicles.

They're home to more species of living beings than we've been able to document. So, even if we replant a bunch of trees after chopping a bunch down, most of the creatures that once called that forest home becomes homeless. The web of life is analogous to a hammock. Once you start messing with the individual strands, taking one out here, one out there, sooner or later you fall on your butt. We could be saving some of the trees that go into paper production by recycling, and by extinction, I mean extension, saving habitat in the process.

How about aluminum cans? Should we recycle them? Yes! It takes twenty times as much energy to produce virgin aluminum as it does to recycle aluminum. This means that every coke can in the trash or on the side of the road contributes to global warming by creating a greater demand for virgin aluminum.

This doesn't have to be. In light of the well-documented environmental destructive age in which we live, no student should come out of Ole Miss without understanding the need to recycle. By understanding, I mean doing it. Ralph Nader is fond of the Chinese proverb that says to know and not to act is not to know. Certainly this is true of the recycling issue. Most people know that the environment is in deep doo-doo. So, now it's time to do your part. Start recycling. Volunteer at the recycling station. Encourage your friends to recycle. Use the recycling bins as they are meant to be used.

Of course, many people are doing the right thing. It's a rotten shame when the university, which is supposed to be in an above-average spot on the enlightenment spectrum, doesn't have their own house in order on such a basic issue as recycling. Welcome to the 1980s, already. How is it that two tons of University recyclables are landing at the volunteer-run recycling center every month, according to a university official, and the director of the recycling plant knows nothing about it? Are we really recycling all that stuff, or is the two tons really just two tons of public relations attempt? Recycling at Ole Miss is important. A recycling program in Oxford failed in the past because the people who came to buy the stuff weren't collecting enough to justify the trip to Oxford.

As the largest institution in the community, Ole Miss can, and should, do better. We all need to do our part to reverse the environmental destruction that will go down in history as the hallmark of the twentieth century. Recycling plays an important role in that process. Let's get on with it.