Hartwick college

With the switch to a new waste-management contractor, Casella Waste Systems, in February 2011, Hartwick College became one of the first institutions in the region to embrace Zero-Sort Recycling.

Zero-Sort Recycling works much like it sounds. All manner of recyclable material may now be placed, without sorting, on the recycling side of the new blue dumpsters on Hartwick's campus.

"Plastic, paper, metal, tin, glass, cardboard--even clean pizza boxes--can all go in one bin, and the contents of that bin then go into the recycling side of the  dumpsters," explained Brian Hagenbuch, Director of Hartwick's Pine Lake Institute for Environmental and Sustainability Studies.

"What that means is we're greatly increasing the amount of recyclable materials that can be reused and turned into new products. It's also going to greatly reduce the amount of solid waste that gets sent to the landfill."

Watch a video explaining the Zero Sort Recycling process.

ACCEPTABLE MATERIALS:
Cardboard: flat and corrugated
Paper: e.g., newspaper, junk mail, envelopes, catalogs, softcover books, telephone books, brown paper, magazines, inserts
Plastic: containers #1-7
Glass: bottles and containers, any color
Cans: aluminum, tin, steel containers, pie plates, trays, foil

UNACCEPTABLE MATERIALS:
Wind glass, mirrors, light bulbs
Dishes, Pyrex, ceramics
Foam packaging, styrofoam, plastic bags
Recyclables containing food waste, paint, or oils
Hazardous material or universal waste
VCR tapes

For more information about Zero-Sort Recycling, contact sustain@hartwick.edu.