Sustainability at PSU in peril?

Recent budget cuts within Portland State Facilities and Planning have changed recycling and composting services at the university, triggering concern that these changes are inconsistent with PSU’s status as a leader in sustainable practices.

The changes were made in an effort to meet a new budget set by the university. Five part-time positions, all unionized Recycling Specialists, were eliminated, and PSU Recycles will no longer collect individual office compost. Additionally, recycling collection services have changed to meet the demands of the lower budget.

“The changes we have made naturally require some adjustment, but they have been made carefully to minimize the impact to the campus,” said Karl Johnson, Facilities and Planning customer service manager. “Nearly every university, public agency or private enterprise has been asked to do more with less. In this respect, we are no different,” he added.

However, some see the changes as having potential for substantial negative impact.

“The PSU Recycles staff was well educated on proper recycling practices and truly cared about increasing PSU’s diversion rate and waste reduction on campus. It is not guaranteed that those taking over the work will have the same degree of passion or knowledge,” said Molly Bressers, Campus Sustainability Office program and outreach coordinator. “The loss of those staff could be seen as detrimental, but we will move forward and find new solutions,” she added.

Each PSU department will now have to self-service its own composting. Bins are provided to offices that request them, as well as bin liners at no cost. These self-servicing programs were implemented after a successful pilot program, according to Johnson, who added that office compost collection was originally self-servicing. Furthermore, he said that for a time facilities attempted to collect compost from offices twice per week, but this proved to be too labor intensive.

Additionally, only events held at Smith Memorial Student Union will have Facilities-assisted composting services.

Danielle Grondin, Residence Life sustainability liaison, also voiced her displeasure with the positions at PSU Recycles being cut and said she was unsure how the void would be filled.

“I believe our recycling and composting program on campus is something we should be investing more time, energy and money in. It is so disappointing that the opposite has happened,” Grondin said.

Depending on the building, mixed product and glass recycling will continue to be collected once or twice each week. However, housing buildings and buildings with professional staff dedicated to collecting recycling will now have their recycling collected by their respective firms instead of by Facilities.

Facilities still has a full-time recycling coordinator and continues to use in-house or contracted workers to handle materials. Facilities may also continue to assist in education and outreach functions, but only as staff resources allow.

Caleb Scoville, student sustainability purchasing specialist at the Sustainability Leadership Center, is concerned that the service reductions will adversely affect the campus.

“Not only should we be concerned if we are moving in the wrong direction environmentally, but sustainability relies on habit formation,” Scoville said. “When we make changes, we need to consider the costs of disrupting existing systems. If changing a process for composting or recycling leads to confusion, more of it will likely end up in the trash. A major focus of our organization is to make it easier for students to make responsible choices; without institutional stability, that job becomes harder,” he said.

These changes could make it difficult to meet PSU’s Climate Action Plan goals of reducing solid waste generated at PSU by 25 percent and reducing landfill-bound waste to 10 percent. Reducing composting services could directly impact the second goal and may send more waste to the landfill.

“In order to meet these goals, we cannot rely solely on dedicated green teams and departments who are willing to self-haul their food waste but also need to institutionalize composting and recycling across campus by making it easy for people,” Bressers said.

Heather Spalding, SLC sustainability leadership and outreach coordinator, said she heard from stakeholders that they were concerned because so many different entities work with materials management and that the system is complex and few of them communicate. They were also worried that one person could not manage recycling for a large part of the campus, among other concerns.

Spalding also indicated that the City of Portland mandated that organizations strive to divert 75 percent of their waste away from the garbage by 2015. Even before the cuts and when PSU Recycles was fully staffed, PSU had only achieved a 30 percent diversion rate.

However, Bressers said that PSU could still maintain its sustainable practices as long as PSU stays vigilant and doesn’t allow anything to slip through the cracks. Bressers said she hopes that when the custodial contracts are renewed, collection services from departments and event compost and recycling support services will be added as contracted services.

Results from a resource conservation survey taken in March by students in The Broadway and Ondine Residence Hall indicated that 91 percent of respondents were somewhat interested in learning how to compost more effectively. Of those surveyed, 15 percent did not know where to recycle batteries and 85 percent indicated they would be somewhat likely to recycle batteries if they knew where to take them.

Interest in recycling and waste minimization was 4.21 in a scale of one to five. Of respondents, 84 percent also agreed with the following statement: “I would be disappointed if existing resource conservation measures (recycling, energy conservation programs, et cetera) were cut.”

“Overall, I think we knew that our waste system on campus needed attention if we were to meet our goals, and these cuts are another salient reminder of that need,” Bressers said. She added that, going forward, the Climate Action Plan Implementation team would be putting together a group to look at PSU’s waste system in the hopes of creating solutions and a strategy.