Introduction
The proper disposal and recycling of certain materials, especially various plastics, is especially important with the growing consumption and everyday use for them. In an article published by IN Context titled “Plastics are Big Business in Indiana,” plastic production has grown by over twenty-two percent from 1996 to 2006, with a continuing demand for plastic manufacturing employees. The article also stated that “in 2005, [plastic] manufacturing in Indiana was 19.9 percent of total employment for the state” (Boatman), which was higher than the 10.8 percent total employment towards plastic production for the United States as a whole. With these percentages of the workforce producing plastic, it is estimated that about 367 million metric tons of plastic and plastic products were produced globally last year, with approximately 36 million tons being used here in the United States. Of all plastics produced, the most common type/use was for containers and single-use packaging at 14.5 million tons produced in 2018. Plastics, whether single-use or not, have harmful effects when not disposed of properly, therefore it is imperative that it they are properly disposed of and recycled. However, according to a material-specific data report on plastic from the EPA, only approximately three million tons of plastics are recycled annually, around 8.7% of the total amount produced, the rest to be polluted into the environment, eventually contributing to biodiversity loss and climate change. The following charts highlight the recycling discrepancies here in the United States:
(Retrieved from State of Recycling, Circular Indiana)
This recycling problem is evident all over the world, the country, and is even apparent in Indiana, with Indiana’s recycling rate for 2017 being an unsurprising 16.8% (Circular Indiana). This is especially seen here in our city of Bloomington. According to the 2001 Bloomington Environmental Quality Indicators report by Environmental Commission of the City of Bloomington, across the years of 1990 to 2000, only about 19,700 tons of recyclable materials were collected and disposed of, as compared to a total of 72,000 tons of landfill trash and 27,600 tons of yard waste. The number of recycled materials coming out of Bloomington is significantly lower than regular waste and yard waste, and this can be explained by the fact that Indiana does not incentivize recycling and lacks the necessary resources to adequately tackle such challenges. In a more recent 2018 Recycling Activity Summary by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, it shows that “Indiana’s 2018 recycling rate was 20 percent, up from 16.8 percent in 2017” (9). Though recycling rates have increased for Indiana, there is still a lack of resources and a beneficial program to promote recycling here in Bloomington.
A study done by SPEA Capstone students about the Bloomington Recycling Program and recommendations for the program highlighted that Bloomington lacks a sustainable recycling program because we are limited in the options and resources necessary to create one, and there is little initiative to change this. According to their report, through a contract with Republic Services, the City of Bloomington “provides dual-stream curbside recycling service for noncommercial properties, which requires residents to separate fiber products from other recyclables” (7) but does not provide recycling service to commercial properties and businesses, which must do so on their own will and cost. After materials are picked up from these locations across town, they are delivered to Republic’s material recovery facility (MRF) in Indianapolis, which highlights an issue with our recycling program, as we do not have our own MRF in Bloomington or Monroe County. Towards the end of their report, recommendations on how to improve recycling in Bloomington were listed, for example, “mandating recycling to an attainable extent,” thus encouraging a higher percentage of plastics to end up recycled instead of in the environment. Another beneficial change to the Bloomington Recycling Program would be increasing the availability of recycling sites and materials, as most businesses and rental properties do not have access to their own recycling and simply throw everything away as waste. Places like Indiana University and several parks in Bloomington have already incentivized this change by adding a higher frequency of receptacles that allow for recycling across their campus. An overview of sustainability on Sustain IU emphasizes that 77% of waste receptacles on IU’s campus, indoor and outdoor, allow for recycling of plastics and other materials, which encourages students, faculty, and visitors of the campus to properly dispose of their recyclable materials. Aside from Indiana University, however, most waste receptacles around Bloomington are waste only, meaning they do not have any means for recycling and things that otherwise would be recycled are just being thrown away to be hauled as trash.
Methods
These severe lack of adequate recycling programs, materials, and receptacles around Bloomington contribute to a higher number of plastic wastes getting out into the environment, thus affecting plants and animals alike. The study I am conducting focuses on recycling issues that stem from the lack of available resources regarding recycling and management of materials in Bloomington, Indiana. The lack of initiative towards recycling here is quite evident, and though it has improved in recent years, it is still prevalent in several areas across town. I am interested in finding out if areas with more recycling initiative and availability will be less polluted with plastics and other recyclables, and if areas with less availability of these materials would be more polluted. I am also interested to see just how important Bloomington and its residents regard recycling, as well as lay out the issues around the idea overall. The specific materials I will be focusing on are plastics and plastic-based materials, as well as other recyclables, as defined by the list on the City of Bloomington’s Sanitation and Recycling guidelines website. I plan to include and incorporate data in an over-arching sense of Bloomington, focusing on the city as a whole with specific attention focused towards those areas that might contribute more to this problem.
To conduct this research and answer my hypotheses, I plan on doing a lot of visual and qualitative data collection throughout the Indiana University campus and the city of Bloomington, primarily focusing on businesses, residential properties (rented apartments, houses, etc.) and public parks, all of which have the option to pay extra for recycling materials to be provided to them through a third-party vendor, Republic services. My data collection on the Indiana University campus will be based a Sustain IU article that claims over 77% of waste receptacles on campus contain recycling-friendly options. It will feature a large focus on visual and photographic collection, done specifically visiting a large majority of buildings across campus and comparing which ones have recycling-friendly waste receptacles and signs that encourage students and faculty to recycle. Then, I will do weekly walks on the IU campus, focusing on areas that have the most student and faculty foot traffic. Areas like this will include the IU Arboretum, the Indiana Memorial Union, the Showalter/Fine Arts Plaza, Dunn’s Woods, Dunn Meadow, Sample Gates, and around Wells Library. I will record how many pieces of recyclable material pollutants I find, as compared to how many outside recycling bins there are in these areas. I will compile all of this into a written journal that I will then transfer into data tables paired with photographic examples of each.
As for data collection on the city of Bloomington’s recycling statistics, I plan to send a survey to a significant population of both students and residents living in Bloomington. I will need at least 50 accurate and complete responses to get a fair estimate of how available recycling is, and ideally this response base would be spread across students, faculty, and other Bloomington residents. The survey I will send out will be based on a similar study conducted to research the effects of Bloomington’s poor recycling on water quality (Recycling patterns of students and the effects on water quality in Bloomington, Indiana, 2020) and will contain these six questions:
- Do you live on-campus, in a rented apartment/house, or an owned house?
- On-Campus
- Rented Apartment/House
- Owned House
- If you live in a rented property, does your landlord/property manager provide you with recycling services?
- Yes
- No
- I live on-campus or in an owned property and recycling is provided to me
- I live in an owned property and recycling is NOT provided to me
- Do you recycle whenever it is available to you? (Whether at home or in public)
- Yes
- No
- It is not available to me, but I try to recycle frequently
- About how many plastic/other recyclable materials do you use on a weekly basis? (This can include plastics like bottles, single-use containers, cups, and other recyclable materials such as cans, cardboard, etc.)
- 1-3 times per week
- 4-7 times per week
- 8-11 times per week
- 12+ times per week
- What types of materials do you find yourself using the most?
- Single-use plastics (water bottles, food containers, etc)
- Reusable plastics and containers
- Compostable/eco-friendly containers (Paper/fiber materials, etc)
- I do not use any of these materials in my daily life
- Do you frequently see recyclable material pollutants across the city of Bloomington?
- Yes
- No
The survey will be sent out via email with a provided Google Survey link for easy and efficient data collection. I also plan on reaching out to the Republic Services transfer station in Indianapolis where recyclables from Bloomington are shipped to be sorted and sold to other entities, in hopes to get a more specific account of how much of their plastic/recyclable waste comes from Bloomington. According to a GoGreen District Map, Bloomington only has one main facility to adequately collect these materials, and though I am not sure how successful I will be in getting accurate data back, it would be helpful to incorporate the total amount of recyclables that come out of Bloomington. Another research study conducted by a Capstone group of SPEA here at IU compiled recycling statistics from 2015, and I plan to incorporate their data into my study and data analysis as well.
Overall, through several weeks of collection I plan to gather enough accurate and complete data to highlight the effects of Bloomington’s poor and initiative-lacking recycling program. I believe that first-hand accounts from students and residents here on their own recycling experiences, coupled with my observations and records from visiting several sites across the IU campus and Bloomington, will provide the best figures for how much plastic and other materials end up in the environment. The study is designed to find a significant correlation between densely populated areas with little amounts of recycling available (businesses, apartments, and houses where students/others rent) and how many pollutants end up in the environment, as compared to less-densely populated areas with more available recycling (on-campus dorms/buildings and off-campus owned houses/businesses) and how polluted with plastics those areas might be.
Further information incorporated in my study will also include any other sources or statistics on what is being done to mediate these issues, any changes or policies that have been implemented recently to provide more of an initiative towards recycling, and any other special considerations or important factors regarding recycling overall, whether on a Bloomington scale or a national/global scale.
Results
My original goal was 50 complete survey responses, and after giving several days for the survey answers to come in, I ended up with 61 responses. Those who participated were an array of students, some faculty members of IU, and other Bloomington residents without any affiliation to the University. Though many participants who received the study were students and lived off campus, I believe that a fair number of on-campus and non-student participants were included as to provide an accurate depiction of what recycling looks like for different people across town. Based on these 61 responses, the majority of participants lived in a rented property, such as an apartment, townhome, or student house, and they reported they are NOT provided with any recycling services through their landlord or property managers. This same group of participants also reported that the most common type of recyclable material used in their daily lives were single-use plastics, things like drinking bottles, to-go/food containers, wrappers, etc, with an average rate of use being between 8 to 12+ times per week. This can be quite concerning, as many participants were not provided recycling but simultaneously use excessive amounts of recyclable materials daily, leading to improper disposal of these items that, if recycling were provided, could find their way back into the manufacturing system to cut down on plastic and recyclable production and waste.
Additionally, of those Bloomington residents that are not provided recycling materials via their landlords and property managers, 47% responded that they make efforts to recycle whenever possible, and 88% of all participants reported regularly seeing recyclable material pollutants across the city of Bloomington, whether that be in parks, streets, waterways, and other public spaces. When we think about these survey results, it is easy to see that there is a clear and pressing recycling issue here in town. We use many materials that, if not disposed of properly, can bring a plethora of drawbacks to our environment, but do not have adequate space or materials designed to handle them.
(Main survey responses from 61 participants)
My visual and qualitative data produced similar results to the survey, apart from Indiana University and its campus. I visited 20 different buildings on campus in several different neighborhoods/sections, and all varied between dorms, office buildings, lecture halls, and laboratories. In these 20 buildings, every single one contained at least one form of recycling receptacle, either next to or attached to a regular waste disposal bin. Near these areas, signs were hung up with what is accepted in each receptacle, as well as links to the Sustain IU webpage with further details on recycling initiatives and information at Indiana University. I was quite pleased to see this, as well as the buildings that featured more than one of these recycling areas, as it promotes recycling and encourages students and faculty to cut down on improper disposal and reduces the number of harmful materials that end up in the environment.
Furthermore, my visual data was collected on a 4-week time span with weekly walks on campus. During this 4-week period, I only recorded a total of 8 recyclable material pollutants outside on campus. The area I walked is displayed in the map below:
(Area on campus surveyed; includes buildings such as lecture halls, laboratories, offices, dorms, and Well’s Library)
Though I went mostly all over campus, I saw all 8 of these materials in a three-block radius of the Arboretum, Well’s Library, and the Fine Arts plaza near the Showalter Fountain in the center of campus, circled in red on the map. This could be due to the groundskeeping services IU has and their mission to present a clean, healthy campus, but it could also be largely due to the incentives and motivations towards recycling provided by the University.
(Some examples of recycling initiatives provided inside Indiana University buildings, along with information for proper recycling and links for further information from Sustain IU)
Comparatively, I performed the same 4-week recording process of visual and qualitative data off campus, and the results were quite surprising. I went out on the same days off campus as I did on campus, with just a few hours of time in between, and found over 50 recyclable material pollutants littered on the ground, in streets, drain systems, etc. The areas I surveyed off campus are outlined in the maps below:
(Residential area near Memorial Stadium)
(Commerical area by Kirkwood Avenue)
I saw the most pollution around off campus apartments near the stadium, likely due to the large population of student-renter residents coupled with the lack of recycling services provided by landlords. While walking in this same area, I only found recycle bins provided to residents who were renting 6 different houses on 20th street, 19th street, and Lincoln street. I only saw one service picking up both regular waste and recycling, which was Republic Services, the main contracted disposal service that also owns the transfer station in Indianapolis. The second map shows the area I surveyed around Kirkwood Avenue, and the results I saw here were like those I saw in the residential area near the stadium. There were only a few businesses and offices that had recycling bins visible and accessible, most likely a result of these businesses having to pay for these services themselves, and many opting out of the extra fees for recycling bins and pick-ups. Though I did see some public recycle bins up and down Kirkwood Ave, there were only 3 to a total of 10 trash bins found. As I walked the area, I noticed that while there was litter scattered around that consisted of plastics, it was not nearly as much as the residential area, though there was also a lack of recycling areas. The data collected off campus shows that even when recycling IS provided to residents and businesses, people are less likely to do so if there isn’t initiative, encouragement, or knowledge pertaining to it.
(Recyclable material pollutants sitting next to a recycle bin on E 20th St.)
(Single use recyclables laying in plants)
(Republic Services trash pick-up on 19th St.)
Discussion
Though mostly successful in my research and data collection with this study, I came across several obstacles and difficulties that presented challenges to my overall study design and actual results. The first limitation came from my actual survey that I sent out to students, faculty, and residents here in Bloomington. I had six questions regarding recycling availability and habits of participants, and though my answer options provided on the form were adequate in collecting the needed data, they could have been more specific in gauging just how much the recycling habits of residents differs based on location and availability.
I also had trouble getting the proper number of responses I initially desired, and though I collected more than my initial goal of 50 complete responses, that was less than half of the total surveys sent out. Therefore, I feel as if a smaller sample size, perhaps around 25-30 responses, would have been both more attainable and essential in providing strong, un-skewed data. Some further constraints to my study involved the physical data collection, as I had limited access to buildings/properties, recycling plans, schedules, etc. and had to only collect data from the street, with visual recordings of the number of receptacles, an exception being Indiana University. Though this is what I was originally going for, it would have been helpful to have more access to knowledge and information regarding prices for recycling services at businesses/properties, how often it is collected, and how often it is used.
Finally, though this was a semester project, I feel as if time was a large constraint on collection and research. A two-to-three-month span is adequate for this level of research; however, a longer time span would have allowed for more results showing the inadequacies of Bloomington’s recycling services and how this affects the environment. A longer time span would have also allowed for a potential response from the Transfer Station in Indianapolis, as well as the single recycling center here in Bloomington, to gauge just how much recycling comes out of Bloomington. Though I did not get these email responses like I was hoping, I feel as if it did not skew my results too much, but would have helped to solidify the fact that Bloomington residents produce a substantial amount of recyclable waste and lack adequate resources to dispose of it properly.
Conclusions
Overall, my research and data results support my initial hypotheses that areas with more traffic and less recycling availability would be more polluted with recyclable materials, as opposed to areas with more availability being less polluted by these same materials. Because Indiana University promotes recycling and sustainability, there is more efforts and funding towards providing recycling materials to students and faculty members, both inside and out on the campus. However, compared to landlord-owned properties and businesses, there was a higher likelihood that recycling was not provided, most likely due to monthly service fees and practicality. When recycling is not provided, people have less incentive to go out of their way to properly dispose of the many recyclables they use, and ultimately they end up in the environment and contribute to the increasing biodiversity loss, climate change, and other harmful effects we as humans see every day.
To mediate these harmful effects of a lack of recycling, I believe the first step should be incentivizing and educating Bloomington residents on how much recycling we use as a city. Perhaps one of the first ways to raise awareness to this issue would be to calculate individual ecological footprints on a personal level, to gauge how much of an impact they themselves have. Additionally, when presenting my survey, several classmates noted that they did not know where the recycling center in Bloomington was. Therefore, I feel as if posting signs and reminders that help residents find out where to properly dispose of their waste would be beneficial in cutting down on how many of these items end up in the environment.
Additionally, though there is not much that can be done to force landlords to pay for recycling services for their renters and for their businesses, offering monetary incentives or financial breaks for those who are willing to participate in recycling programs would be an influential way to help Bloomington’s recycling situation. Because we ship our recycling to a transfer station to be sold off, a portion of those sales could come back to the city of Bloomington and be offered to landlords/property managers in the form of tax breaks or stipends, just for simply offering recycling to residents and encouraging the safe and responsible disposal of certain materials. From my survey, over 47% of participants stated that they are not offered recycling, but they try to do so whenever possible. If we translate that into population figures, 47 out of 100 people care to recycle but simply do not have the chance or opportunity to at home. If they were offered recycling however, this would allow them to recycle and would in-turn greatly reduce the number of pollutants in Bloomington.
When looking at comparisons to cities with the best recycling programs in the United States, cities like San Diego, California and Denver, Colorado were mentioned several times due to their recycling initiatives and economic opportunities for such. I investigated Colorado’s plans to boost recycling, and they offer several different types of grants and financial awards to promote recycling and proper disposal. According to the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment, since it was created in 2007, “the Recycling Resources Economic Opportunity program has awarded nearly $25 million to businesses, local governments, nonprofit organizations, and schools and universities to develop recycling infrastructure and promote sustainable behavior change in communities…” (CPDHE). Planning and legislation towards implementing something similar here in Bloomington does not seem unattainable, and the fact that other cities have successfully implemented such plans gives hope to our overlooked community.
References
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