Gather Your Goods for Elmhurst College's Recycling Extravaganza

According to the EPA 2010 Municipal Solid Waste report, the average U.S. citizen generates 4.43 pounds of waste per person per day. Statistics suggest DuPage County residents are anything but average, generating nearly 8 pounds of waste per person per day. Elmhurst College’s Recycling Extravaganza, Saturday, April 14 from 9 a.m. to noon, provides an alternative for ridding your home of unwanted items.

Instead of putting them out on the curb for the City of Elmhurst’s free refuse collection day, drop them at the college for recycling and repurposing.

“It’s personally satisfying to do something meaningful with unwanted items rather than sending them to the landfill,” said Christine Smith, associate dean of students and director of residence life at Elmhurst College. “Repurposing items cuts down on overall waste.”

The city’s free refuse collection day is not actually free, in that it costs the city, and thus its residents, to include this service in its overall financial arrangement with the disposal vendor, Smith said. Additionally, because of the state of Illinois ban on electronics in landfills, this year the city will not accept electronics in its free refuse collection day. As is the case every year, all items set out by the curb on the city’s collection day are sent to a landfill.
 
The Elmhurst College Sustainability Committee first initiated the recycling event in April 2011.
 
“Hosting a recycling event was a very practical way to demonstrate our commitment to stewardship, one of our college’s five core values, and would be responsive to the new state law regarding responsible disposal of electronics,” Smiths said.

As of Jan. 1, the state of Illinois banned used electronics from being tossed into landfills. Banned items include: TVs, computer monitors, computers (laptop, notebook, tablet), printers, DVD players, DVD recorders, VCRs, MP3 players, gaming systems, fax machines, small scale servers, scanners, computer mice, digital converter boxes, cable receivers and satellite receivers. The ban helps to keep toxic materials such as lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium and beryllium out of the soil and groundwater, according to the Environmental Law and Policy Center’s Chicago office.
 
“Items will be properly recycled or used by an organization in need,” Smith said.
 
Organizations benefitting from the collection include DuPage Habitat for Humanity Restore, SCARCE, Cornerstone Used Book Store, St. Vincent De Paul, Elmhurst Lions Club, Elmhurst Bicycle Club and Working Bikes Cooperative. Assisting these organizations in the collection process are about 40 Elmhurst College students and employees. Students are part of the college’s environmental student organization, the Greenjays, with other students participating as one of the college’s monthly Bluejays Care Service Projects, hosted by the Office of Leadership, Service and Engagement.

Items collected at the Elmhurst College Recycling Extravaganza include: electronics, various types of building supplies, appliances, books, clothing, home goods, eye glasses, hearing aids, batteries, fire extinguishers, propane and oxygen tanks, bicycles, scrap metal and fluorescent lights. Paper shredding also is available. For a complete listing of collected items or for paper shredding restrictions, click here. The collection spot will be at Park and Myrtle, in the parking lot of the Mill Theatre.

“Elmhurst is a great place to live, and we can be a leader by being better stewards of our resources,” Smith said.

Writer Barbara Lonergan contributes a regular feature for the Elmhurst Cool Cities Coalition titled, We Caught You Doing Something Cool. If you spot someone around town doing something cool to impact the environment, contact Elmhurst Cool Cities at ecoolcities@gmail.com. Elmhurst Cool Cities Coalition is a volunteer coalition of local institutions, organizations, business leaders and citizens working to achieve the goals of the Sierra Club Cool Cities campaign and the U.S. Mayors’ Climate Protection Agreement.