OUR VIEW: Blue bins are not just for decoration

Many of us do not give a second thought about where we throw away our paper plate or bowl from the Hub or where we discard our semester’s worth of notes from accounting – admittedly, containing mostly doodles. Yet, some students are attempting to change the view of recycling one competition at a time.

Recycling, something we all see as relatively easy, yet many of us fail to do, has become the focus of a national university competition. Utah State University is competing with 48 other universities across the nation to find which school recycles most. Kudos to those students who are participating in this competition and doing what most of us fail to do.

Despite those of us who forget to place our midday soda cans in the recycling bin, according to the city of Logan, 3,454 tons of waste was collected from recycling, a 15 percent increase from 2002. The city also introduced Mr. Garbology in 2003, an educational tool to help teach residents about the effects of recycling.

We commend those who are pursuing the recycling efforts on and off of campus. In 2003, the municipal landfill collected 79,479 tons of waste from 28,540 homes. The students are participating in this national competition should be commended for what the rest of us fail to do. However, that is no excuse for those of us that pretend not to see the blue bins scattered around campus.

Those of us who slack every once in awhile when it comes to recycling should realize the small inconvenience that sorting our trash actually is.