Over the Edge - January 18 features 11 Some Common Misconceptions About Recycling Part Two of Three JARROD WEISNER LIFESTYLE EDITOR he University of Northern T British Columbia has quite the international reputation as be- ing one of the key players in a global effort to reduce, reuse, and recycle. However, there can be some miscon- strued beliefs about recycling that students and faculty here at UNBC hold, even when they themselves are only trying to remain green and con- serve while on and off campus. Some questions posed over the fall semester contained both fact and fallacy about recycling in general, and Over the Edge is now here to clear the air for you, so the next time you recycle, you know exactly where it’s going, what it’s doing for you in the future, and how good habits can lead to better re- sults for everyone taking part in this practice. Does using plastic containers conserve energy? What you have to remember about this form of reusability is that there is always a production of the plastic containers themselves. You have the plastic containers made in China or Taiwan or even Ontario here at home, but this means that there were half a million more of this exact container made, and that’s a strain on the en- vironment. Creating plastic contain- ers uses as much energy as it takes to create a glass container from its basic properties, and even more energy than it takes to create one from recycled glass materials. On the other hand, shipping and receiving of these plas- tic materials is obviously lighter than glass, and therefore uses less energy. There are too many possibilities in the manufacture and distribution process- es of plastic materials, and this leads to the belief that right now it is not necessarily a proven negative idea to make use of plastic containers instead of disposable ones. The most logical choice would be to avoid the trash and continue to reuse your plastic. Quoting the Institute for Local Self- Reliance (ILSR) and their Waste to Wealth initiative, “Recycling critics erroneously assume that virtually all the costs of the solid waste system The weight of the world bearing down on those who recycle... Does recycling cost more than trash disposal? The business of recycling materials has attracted some of the most intelli- gent minds of the latest centuries, and when a recycling program is designed correctly, the costs are comparative or equal to that of simple trash disposal. TT te wisi ie. ifs 0 ees are fixed, that is, represent long-term apital investments. This assumption leads them to view recycling as an add-on cost and therefore expensive. In fact, when recycling reaches high levels and system manager’s view it as the way they collect wastes, then fixed costs can become variable costs. Labor can be reassigned. Twenty per- cent of the fleet vehicles turn over annually and can be redesigned and reduced in scale and cost.” Prince George has a major problem in that it does not have curbside recycling available to citizens. My personal experience of living in a town that saw the opportunity of this service and enacted it with proper care was one of positive firsthand results. Just because the curbside recycling was offered, the rumours around town council meetings was that people, in the long run, would end up purchas- ing more plastics simply because the service was available and plastics were receivable. In turn, the company directly involved with pickup and dis- tribution of recycled products began to educate the public on the process involved of plastics and paper alike. The focus, again, was on the topic of down-cycling. This encouraged people to seek more information from other sources to better involve them- selves in the recycling process and create positive results. The UNBC Green Centre offers a completely free-thinking environment with sup- porting scientific facts to help you, the student or faculty member, under- stand how and why and where our re- cycling is going. Just because UNBC has recyc- ling means that it’s properly maintained, right? This is unfortunately false. UNBC relies on its school population to seek out and manage most of the recycling methods themselves. The community here at UNBC is meant to properly recycle their disposable products and take the recycling program seriously. The idea of the community is self-sus- taining, and this also requires every- one to watch out for each other and educate each other on the correct way to recycle plastics, papers, bottles, and cardboard. Some of the problems involved are easily resolved with less than ten seconds of your time — see something wrong? Fix it. Move it. See who did it? Just inform them. There’s a good chance some people just don’t know they’re doing it wrong, and the program is quite self-defeating if the bags contain mixed recyclables that may or may not make it into the prop- er destinations. A major issue concerning UNBC is the way residents in housing are re- cycling, but in a much different way than you would think. Plastics are now known to be the largest amount of recyclables coming out of resi- dence, and though students are keen on recycling them, the large green receptacle is simply not big enough told hold it all. On a good day you'll drop everything off and hit the bot- tom of the bin, and in direct contrast you will, more often than not, come outside only to be sent back in again with the same recyclables. The plas- tics bin becomes overflowing and there are numerous complaints of the bins being misused and mixed by lazy or ignorant practices. The worst-case scenario sees the plastic bin so over- loaded that it is thrown on the ground beside it and spreads into the sur- rounding areas by the weather. This is unacceptable and highly insulting to those of us who are patient enough to use the service carefully. While UNBC Housing is currently looking into resolve this issue, it is your duty as a resident to respectfully maintain a privilege given to those on campus. WELCOME TO 2012, EVERYONE Your Official Warning JARROD WEISNER LIFESTYLE EDITOR new January at UNBC requires a fair warning to anyone staying in residence and planning on sleeping more than three hours a night. Bringing the coldest months of the year at the beginning of each new one, Prince George Iso maintains a high level of a naturally occurring phenomenon that will slow you down in more ways than you realize: snow. If you’re returning to residence from last year in the Winter Semester, you already know what I’m going to say, and if you’re new here, you just need to know that it will become the bane of your existence: snowplows. While the university is top-notch in snow removal (although drivers in the student parking lot for residence would disagree), they have only become such elite snow-removers by working tirelessly throughout the night to ensure paths and roads are clear for business-as-usual the next day. It typically throws throughout the night, and this means that the large yellow snowplows are employed to fix this pickle of a pileup. The bad news? The noise. Just when you think you’ve dazed off to dream of economic equations, James Joyce, or Plato’s Republic, the engines fire up and drive closer and closer. They squeak and they moan and they roar and they drive all night until you wake up — and sometimes even continuing throughout the day. This can drive you crazy if you do not establish healthy sleep patterns and continue to do so throughout the entire semester. It is an extremely strange factor that will soon begin to rule your sanity, but only if you let it. Consider this your practical warning to an unseen disturbance that may enter your future at three in the morning with a midterm six hours later. The complete opposite of what UNBC snowplows are.