You may have already heard the rumors circulating around campus.

"Elon doesn’t recycle."

"They just dump it all together."

According to Hardy White, manager of Environmental Services, Elon’s recycling program is developed and running smoothly. White has headed the program for almost two years. He has also been active in engaging students to promote recycling through contact groups like the Sierra Club and recently with a new class called Environmental Activism and Society, where students are working with him through a service-learning project. He said he feels the recycling program as a whole has been fairly successful up to this point.

This year, Environmental Services switched to a different cardboard recycling company called Federal Waste Paper located in Burlington. The crew recycles about 9,500 pounds of cardboard per month, according to White. With the change in companies, Environmental Services will now receive refunds on the tonnage. The program also began offering a new service of providing a roll-off bin for faculty and staff who are cleaning out their filing cabinets or storage closets.

While the program has been making advances, it is still in need of student involvement. Regular trash cans are still filled with plastic or aluminum containers. This problem seems to be most common in residence halls. Although all dorms have recycling receptacles, not all recyclable items go into their designated containers.

Co-mingled receptacles, which collect plastic, aluminum and glass products, are located in all academic buildings, in dormitories near the trash rooms or dumpsters and in Octagon. Cardboard receptacles are located in Danieley Center, Harper Center and behind McEwen dining hall. Computer labs, the library and the Campus Post office area are all equipped with bins for recycling paper.

A staff of 45 sanitation and custodian crew members handles the recycling process. Once a month, the crew empties the contents of recycling containers placed on campus. The workers remove any trash from the containers and the recyclable goods are then taken to a dumpster located behind the physical plant facility on West Haggard Avenue. The key part of the recycling program is getting the containers into the designated bins on campus. If someone throws a plastic water bottle into a regular trash bin, it will never get recycled. The recycling dumpster is emptied once a month by a company called Republic Waste. From there, the recyclables are taken to FCR Recycling in Greensboro.

At Elon, recycling is less expensive than trash removal. Trash removal costs involve a hauling fee, a rental fee for the landfill site and a dumping fee, which causes the annual trash removal bill to be around $98,000.

"The Alamance landfill tipping fee is currently $36 per ton," White said. "An increase in recyclable tonnage would be a tremendous cost savings for the university."

Melissa Simmons, a junior environmental studies major and president of the Elon Sierra club, offered her own advice.