Stop trashing books in SIU dumpsters

There are dozens of departments located in SIU that supply hundreds of hard copy resources such as novels, textbooks, journal articles and scientific journals that can be found on the shelves of hundreds of varying professors’ offices and public bookshelves throughout the school. As the years go by, some of these hard copy books begin to not receive as much attention and use and, as a result, collect dust. Unfortunately, another result has begun to emerge in the form of mass waste.

Along with the Daily Egyptian, I also work for the Life Science Department as a lab assistant. Part of my job entails taking unusable equipment, old tests and papers to the dumpsters to make room within the labs and various professors’ offices and keep a secure work environment. Upon my arrival on one of these trips, I was shocked to find over 100 old textbooks, scientific journals and guides discarded in waste bins, ready to be trashed.

Immediately after dumping the unsafe equipment and papers, I went to work digging the books out of the trash, placing them onto a cart and wheeling them up to the third floor of Life Science II where two large bookshelves sit ready for professors, assistants and students to place old books they have no further use for. These books sit there awaiting students and faculty that may have a want or need for each and every book sitting on the shelves rather than discarding them. There are dozens of majors and minors that could take advantage of these books.

This discovery is not the first of its kind, however. A week before the 2022 fall semester came to a close, there were around 30 various books discarded in a similar fashion. This is when I became aware of the issue, but there is no doubt in my mind that this practice has been going on for much longer than a year or two. In fact, there are over 320 million textbooks sent to dumpsters each year rather than being refurbished or donated according to the National Wildlife Foundation of America.

I decided to go around to different buildings around campus and was met with more book filled dumpsters at places such as Rehn, Pulliam and Lawson Hall. Luckily, there weren’t as many here, but the point still remains that this issue is a campuswide one that needs more attention.

SIU is a college rooted in science and communication, yet the idea of conservation seems to be just that: an idea rather than an action. The third floor of the Life Science II building has multiple bookshelves lined up in the halls for other students, assistants and professors to place books they have no use for anymore. This allows students and faculty the opportunity to have access to novels for their future career paths or simply to enjoy a piece of literature or science. This is where I place the books found in the dumpsters so those too, can be of use to someone in the future. There are some who discard these books because they are outdated and have information that has since been proven incorrect, but what many people don’t realize is these books could be very useful for historical context and to see how information evolved over the years. Any form of evolution is very important for us to learn from so we do not continue to make the same mistakes and repeat the same inaccuracies.

Suppose this situation isn’t necessary anymore; these books could still be donated out or refurbished into something different. There are several areas around Carbondale that take textbook and novel donations and several more that will point you in the right direction. The science department could even potentially make a profit by selling these books. There are so many other choices that one could make before throwing these books away.

It’s time to change, and this would be a good start.

Staff reporter and photographer Mo Collar can be reached at mcollar@ dailyegyptian.com or on Instagram @ m0.alexander.

Yarauseth Zavala | yzavala@dailyegyptian.com