If you’ve taken a walk through McCorkle Place this summer, you’ve likely noticed the trees and flowers in full bloom, the grounds quieter with fewer students in residence, and plentiful sunshine and Carolina blue skies. What you may not have noticed is that the trash and recycling containers along the sidewalk have changed, and for good reason.
Across much of campus, you’ll find walkway waste sites with three different bins: one for bottle and can recycling, one for mixed paper recycling, and one for landfill waste. However, at McCorkle Place you’ll now find only two “twinned” bins: one for mixed recycling and one for landfill waste. Sonoco Recycling in Raleigh is able to collect mixed recycling containing bottles, cans and paper and sort it at their material recovery facility, where it is then baled as feedstock for new products and packaging.
At the beginning of 2016, the Office of Waste Reduction and Recycling partnered with Grounds Services to begin transitioning all three-bin campus walkway sites to twinned bins. The campus was divided into zones and the first area to be transitioned was McCorkle Place. Not only did the sites get updated, cleaned and converted to twinned bins, but the team was able to reuse the removed recycling bins by adding them to stand-alone trash container sites, creating even more twinned locations.
As you walk along McCorkle Place, keep in mind which materials can be recycled in a single bin and which should go to the landfill. Items such as plastic bottles, glass bottles, soda cans and clean mixed paper should go into the mixed recycling bin; coffee cups, chip bags and Styrofoam cups or containers should be placed in landfill bins. At campus waste sites that have not yet been converted, please continue to sort your bottles and cans and mixed paper into the appropriate bins. As the program expands, you’ll notice more and more sites with twinned bins, making recycling an even easier option on our campus.