Recycling
Every year we see landfills grow to astronomical sizes. We struggle to find places to put all the trash that is generated. Before we knew about contamination, we would throw the trash into lakes, rivers, and oceans. Lake Forest strives to stand out by doing all that we can to reduce our waste.
All recycling bins on campus are commingle.
What does commingle mean? To mix or be mixed; blend.
What does that mean for Lake Forest College’s waste management policy? Paper, plastic, metal, and glass can all be recycled together in every container on campus.
What is recyclable on campus?
Paper
Newspapers, Magazines, and Catalogs
Office Paper (staples and envelopes with windows included)
Cereal Boxes
Hot Beverage Containers
Metal
Soda and Beer Cans
Food trays
Glass
All clear or colored bottles
Plastic
Any container labled Plastic #1-7: Clean Yogurt Containers, Detergent, Shampoo, and Bleach Bottles
What are other items that are recyclable that aren’t on this list?
Bottle caps.
Bottle caps can be recycled separately in the student center or library in the cardboard boxes placed next to the regular recycling bins. LEAP specially recycles these with a different company.
Batteries
Batteries can be recycled separately in the library in blue tubes. The ends must be taped before being placed in the bin.
What makes the recycling containers contaminated?
Contamination of recycling bins leads to rejection from our provider of the materials. This means that we then have to pay to have it specially removed by our trash provider. If we (as a community) would like to better our recycling efforts, we need to cut down on the contamination. These items will contaminate our bins:
* Any food product (i.e. left over pizza, unrinsed Naked juice bottles, etc) generally anything over 5% food residue will cause the entire containers rejection
* Steel (shaving cream cans, etc.)
* Bubble wrap
* Styrofoam (even the stuff that comes in the recyclable boxes)
* The lids from all plastic bottles
* Anything that is not glass, plastic, paper, cardboard, tin or aluminum.
Where do we recycle?
Buildings around campus have blue recycling bins. All of our bins are commingle, meaning that you can mix various recyclable products within the same container. The Mohr Student Center has new blue bin tops and labels!
