Here at UD, recycling has been a growing trend for the last few years.

But on the Wright State University campus, the recycling program has been taken to a whole new level.

'It's been in existence for about 15 years now,' said Val Drake, the environmental services manager at WSU. 'The best that it's been is in the last five years.'

As part of the program, WSU recycles most paper, pallets, loose wood, beverage cans, books, manuals, cardboard, computer equipment, plastic, fluorescent lamps, scrap metal, and inkjet and toner cartridges.

Current plans call for batteries, PCB capacitors, plastic wrap, textiles, tin cans, and industrial metals and plastics to be added to this list.

And, despite what one may think, this sort of recycling effort doesn't come at the cost of student's tuition dollars.

'I would say, on average, that we save $300 a week,' Drake said. 'Any time you take something out of your waste stream, it lowers the cost of your trash removal.'

In fact, between 1999 and 2003, WSU estimated that it saved $46,000 in landfill disposal costs by recycling nearly 700 tons of material, according to a press release on WSU's Web site.

According to Drake, WSU no longer has scheduled trash pickups at all. Instead, the university places waste materials into on-site compactors. The level of these compactors is monitored by two employees.

When the compactors are full, a disposal service is called to remove the trash. In this way, Drake said, the university saves money by not having waste picked up on a regular schedule when it may be unnecessary.

While plans such as this may not work on the UD campus due to its residential nature, Drake said that steps can always be taken to improve recycling efforts.

'I think you have to get your whole campus involved in recycling,' Drake said. 'It is definitely something that you have to be committed to doing.'

WSU, however, is not alone among colleges committed to ideas such as recycling and sustainability.

According to Joe Janosik, co-president of the Sustainability Club, two of the most commendable programs exist at Yale and Harvard.

In fact, in 2005, Yale created an Office of Sustainability, which, according to their Web site, 'reports jointly to the Associate Provost and the Associate Vice President of Facilities operations.'

Such an office was recently requested by SGA in a resolution passed on Nov. 5.

Yale's program not only includes recycling, but also delves into efforts such as energy conservation and a reduction in greenhouse gasses.

Harvard, on the other hand, has started a program called the Harvard Green Campus Initiative, which, according to their Web site, is 'an interfaculty organization that works to address the real life challenges of achieving campus environmental sustainability within Harvard University.'

As a result of the program, the university's utility costs have been reduced by $1 million per year. In addition, the university has reduced its annual greenhouse gas emissions by over 20 million pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent.

Though numbers such as these may only be possible at a university as large as Harvard, they do exemplify the impact that such a sustainability program can have.

'Sustainability should be advanced through research, analysis and experience gained over time,' according to Harvard's Web site.

UD may just be starting down this path, but according to Drake, it is one that everyone can participate in. And, especially on a residential campus such as UD, it is one that everyone must participate in for such an effort to succeed.

'Everyone plays their part,' Drake said. 'You have to make sure that everyone knows what their role is.'