Serving Boone, Blowing Rock, Banner Elk, and other towns of the North Carolina High Country | Founded 05-05-05

ASU Recycles

ASU’s Resource Conservation Manager Works To Reduce, Reuse and Recycle

Story by Sam Calhoun

Over the past decade, ASU has emerged as a statewide and national leader when it comes to sustainability. Featuring the foremost appropriate technology department in the state and a student body that charges itself a student fee for renewable energy projects, ASU is about as green as universities come.
But amid all this talk of sustainability, you don’t read much about ASU and recycling. Surely a university with an intense focus on sustainability has a top-notch recycling program?

It does. Since 1989, the ASU Recycles program has been working to recycle and reduce the university’s waste. And for the past two years, ASU Resource Conservation Manager Jennifer B. Maxwell has led the charge.

Originally from Rockfish, Maxwell graduated from ASU in 2001 with a degree in appropriate technology. During her time at ASU, Maxwell watched as ideas and initiatives concerning sustainability came to the forefront, creating a new image for the university.

ASU Resource Conservation Manager Jennifer B. Maxwell is leading a charge at the university to increase the campus’s recycling rate from 17 percent to 25 percent in the near future. One of her new initiatives is the Tailgate Recycling Program that will debut during ASU home football games this fall. Photo by Sam Calhoun “It was, and is, a wonderful thing to witness,” said Maxwell.

After graduating, Maxwell took a job with ASU Recycles for six months. The training and experience she gained from working with ASU Recycles translated nicely into her next job with the Carolina Recycling Association. Based in Pittsboro, the Carolina Recycling Association is a nonprofit organization dedicated to waste reduction and recycling.

After working with the Carolina Recycling Association for four years, Maxwell returned to Boone in November 2006 to take over the reins as ASU resource conservation manager.

The job of ASU resource conservation manager entails overseeing all recycling on campus, composting, hazardous waste disposal and academic and administrative waste reduction and recycling. The ASU Office of Housing and Resident Life takes care of recycling in the campus’s dormitories and does not work with the ASU resource conservation manager, except for joint projects such as the Tailgate Recycling Program.

According to Maxwell, ASU achieved a 17 percent recycling rate for 2006-07, meaning that 17 percent of all municipal solid waste from ASU was recycled that year. Maxwell does not yet have figures for 2007-08.

Maxwell put the percentage in perspective, though. Whereas the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill boasts a 40 percent recycling rate annually, most universities in the UNC system are between 15 and 25 percent, and some, such as Fayetteville State University, don’t even have recycling programs.

“[All the universities] are working at improving their rates, though. And even though [ASU] is doing OK, it could be better,” said Maxwell. “I’d like to see ASU become even more of a leader in sustainability. There’s so much more that can be done with greening up this campus, but we’re heading in the right direction.”

Since Maxwell arrived in 2006, she has outfitted the campus with new recycling bins, redesigned the ASU Recycles logo and hired a student intern to focus on education and outreach—the same job she held with ASU Recycles in 2001. In addition, Maxwell is working on the Tailgate Recycling Program that will debut this fall at ASU. The Tailgate Recycling Program piggybacks on a trash initiative set up by ASU students last year for ASU home football games. During every ASU home football game, Maxwell and her staff of six employees will pass out translucent green bags for recyclables and teach football fans about recycling and waste reduction, offering real-life examples that relate to greener tailgating.

For the past 18 years, all of ASU’s recycling has been taken to Foothills Sanitation & Recycling in Wilkesboro. Foothills does not charge for this service and, believe it or not, Maxwell and her six employees collect all the recycling from ASU’s campus and transport it to Wilkesboro on a weekly and monthly basis.

“All of the collection is done in-house,” said Maxwell. “We definitely get our hands dirty.”

Maxwell is looking to the future with many goals for ASU recycling and waste reduction. She hopes to raise ASU’s recycling rate to 25 percent by making her programs more efficient. Maxwell also wants to bring more education about waste reduction to campus, as she believes it is just as important as recycling.

“I also want to think beyond recycling, especially about waste reduction,” said Maxwell. “I want this to fit into the overall picture, gearing the campus to the entire sustainability movement.”

So far, the campus community is on the same page as Maxwell. She said the recycle bins always are getting more full, and students frequently call her office to ask for more recycling options.

“The campus community is fully aware of the right thing to do,” said Maxwell. “I love this job because it is something I’ve always been passionate about and I get to work in an area where people are environmentally aware. And for the people who aren’t aware, I love getting to teach them.”

For more information, call 828-262-3190, extension 108.