Over the last few years, they have been appearing all over campus. They have crept into the dining halls, they have moved into the residence hall lounges and they have snuck behind the academic buildings.

Denoted only by the word 'commingle' printed on their sides, these strange receptacles are the sign of a larger trend on the UD grounds. The trend, quiet though it may be, is recycling.

Rumors abound concerning the recycling program here at UD. Does all the paper waste get sent to a landfill anyway? Does a sorting procedure exist to make the recycling cans unnecessary? Does recycling really exist at all?

'We are recycling here at the University of Dayton,' said Michael Purk, manager of contracted services for the Facilities Management Department.

As part of his job, Purk oversees the trash collection at UD, including the recycling program. Both are run through an outside company, Waste Management Inc.

The company, based in Houston, Texas, operates 289 landfills and 138 recycling centers in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico, according to the corporate Web site.

In the area, Waste Management operates six facilities, including three in Fairborn, two in Dayton and one in Moraine. UD uses both of Waste Management's services.

'The trash is taken right to a landfill,' Purk said. 'The commingle is taken back to Waste Management's recycling facilities.'

Purk said more than 50 percent of all the waste produced on campus is taken to a recycling center for paper, cardboard and commingle.

This third category'consisting of aluminum, glass and plastic'is separated into its constituent recyclables at the center. The recycled materials are then resold to manufacturers.

Though most recyclables on campus originate in academic buildings in the form of paper and cardboard, a new program started by Residential Services is also contributing to the total.

'They just started a real aggressive recycling program,' Purk said. 'Behind the Residential Properties buildings, they have a trash dumpster, a commingle dumpster and a cardboard dumpster.'

In addition to these improvements on campus, Facilities Management also has decided to further the cause of recycling by hiring a part-time recycling coordinator.

The new position, which would exist within the Facilities Management Department, will focus on building and expanding an efficient recycling program on campus for students, faculty and staff.

'The new coordinator and I will develop an educational program,' Purk said. 'I would like to see the majority of campus recycling.'

However, though the position has been posted for several months, no one has been hired yet.

'We posted the job twice, and we did not find any qualified candidates,' Purk said. 'So, it's an ongoing search.'

Joe Janosik, the co-president of the Sustainability Club, said he is impressed with the progress Facilities Management and Residential Services have made, but still sees room for advancement.

He would like to see a complete environmental initiative, not run by individual campus offices, but rather by the university as a whole. He said a unified campus effort would help to coordinate recycling, as well as educate the campus community about the benefits of recycling.

Such an initiative would also stress other efforts such as resource and energy conservation and help to reduce the environmental impact of campus operations and planning.

Though no specific plans exist for such a campus department, both Purk and Janosik see such awareness as important. To this end, raising awareness about recycling is one of the Sustainability Club's current goals.

'Our biggest thing that we're trying to push in Student Government is that recycling is just the end,' Janosik said.

He said issues such as energy conservation and resource awareness are also essential to the success of any environmental program.

From the housekeeping and maintenance staffs to the students themselves, Purk and Janosik agree everyone has a part to play in recycling.

'Please use the containers provided,' Purk said. 'And please help us provide a clean, safe environment at the university.'