Plastic Waste at MC Lacks Distinct Recycling Policy

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 had excess of the material to recycle due to construction occurring on campus.

“[Metals] are picked up and they’re shipped out either to a scrap yard, or at some point they may go out from the contractor who’s doing a particular job on campus and that’s part of their scope of work,” McKeown said.

When it comes to more common, everyday waste, students, faculty, staff and anyone else in the college’s buildings are asked to throw certain kinds of garbage into the correct bin in order for it to get re- cycled. Sanitation and facilities workers at MC, McKeown said, are not going through each bag of trash to ensure it is properly sorted.

Raymond Martinez, facilities director of non-technical services, spoke about the duty for students and staff to properly recycle materials in the correct bins.

“We rely heavily on the students and staff to separate [trash] before it goes into each one of the individual containers,” Martinez said. “Once it goes into those containers, that’s the end of the sorting process. Our staff brings it down here … [and] we’ll put it in the associated bin for the [New York City] sanitation de- partment to collect.”

The only type of trash not mentioned in the recycling process for facilities is plastics as there is no colored bag specifically meant for them, even though there are garbage cans labeled “plastic” in various spots on campus. McKeown says he is “not 100 percent sure” of whether or not the New York City Department of Sanitation is sorting out the plastic items within the three large dumpsters. Like the colored bags, there is no specific dumpster being used specifically for plastic waste at the moment.