Two part-time recycling supervisors replaced by one

Last year, recycling intern Paul Kerman, who had owned his own business, noticed inefficiencies in the campus recycling operation, resulting partly from the fact that the two supervisors were part-time and had other campus jobs that distracted their attention. Concerned, Kerman brought his observations to the attention of the UM Recycling Oversight Committee.
This July, on the recommendation of the Oversight Committee, the University of Montana replaced two part-time supervisors with one full-time recycling coordinator. 

Eduard (“Edi”) Stan has full responsibility for campus recycling and is focused on helping the university achieve its goal of recycling at least 25 percent of its waste.
“We were paying supervisors for 20 hours a week, but they might not have been working on recycling during all that time,” said Vicki Watson, an officer on the Oversight Committee.
The salaries for two people working half-time is the same as paying one person full-time, and the money is perhaps better spent.
The plus is that the two supervisors retain their other jobs and can now devote themselves fully to their respective divisions of UM Facility Services.
Stan comes to Montana from the University of Oregon in Eugene where he specialized in recycling for two years in the maintenance department.
But the situation is different in Oregon.
“People in Oregon have 30 extra years of recycling training,” Stan said. “They have developed different habits, and the recycling itself is done differently.”
Knowing things in Montana might be different, Stan spent his first few months on the job doing the grunt work before moving into the supervisory role at the start of the semester.
“I wanted to know what I would be asking my workers to do and how it all worked,” he said.
The UM Recycling Program employs 10 students to sort recyclable materials collected from 88 bins on campus.
Approximately 13 to 18 percent of campus waste is recycled. In addition, one student intern coordinates the activities that educate students and staff about recycling.
Stan says that his biggest challenge is motivating students, both as workers and recyclers. He must keep his work team productive in a dirty job that isn’t very challenging.
“We don’t quite have enough resources, which means we can’t always collect the recycling on time,” Stan said.
If students and staff recycle properly, workers can spend more time sorting recyclables, not trash. Stan is working on a number of changes to encourage students to recycle, such as making recycling bins uniform across campus and color-coding the standard three bins for easy identification.
Better signage near the bins could prevent people from throwing their trash in the wrong one.
But such improvements only go so far. Stan emphasized the need for education to improve awareness. “We need to change people’s behavior. Even when there is a recycling bin nearby, habit takes over and people just toss a piece of paper in the trash. Unless they learn to think about it, they just do what is convenient.”
laura.lundquist@umontana.edu