Waste bins get a face-lift across campus

When Fanshawe’s sustainability department experimented with new waste bin designs back in February, it wasn’t clear to co-ordinator Mary- Lee Townsend if and when all bins on campus would receive a face-lift.

At the end of March and into April, the fresh designs rolled out across the board, but Townsend isn’t stopping there.

“Now that we’ve done that … the next place that we’re looking at doing is, we’re going to be visiting all our regional campuses,” she said. “We would like to have all the regional campuses, the outdoor parking lots and the FSU done by the end of the summer as we’re getting into the new school year.”

Accompanying the sleek new design on bins, students and staff will now be able to see what goes where on signs that sit above the bins.

“Now it’s sitting at eye level and people can see it a lot easier,” Townsend said. “Not only do the decals help people know what bin’s what, the detailed information gives people a lot more of an idea really quickly what goes where.”

What prompted the change was a dip in the college’s recycling numbers – or what sustainability folk call diversion rate.

“Because we experienced such a dip in our diversion rate in the last year, the college and the facilities really wanted to put a lot of effort into bringing that diversion rate back up,” Townsend said. “As a college we’ve made a commitment to be more sustainable and more environmentally conscious.”

Townsend says she received quotes to redo the bins, which ranged from $20,000 to $50,000. But she insists that investing now will become fruitful in the future.

“It’s going to come back to us because we’re going to save on our waste diversion and we’re going to save on our bills on our garbage going out,” she said. “We pay for all of our garbage going out. We spend money going out so we might as well spend a little money to save and try to reduce the amount going out.”

In a survey that sustainability previously did, Townsend says students and staff found signage to be confusing.

“All of the things that people said in that waste management survey we’ve adjusted with this new strategy,” she said.

Travis Daly, an accounting student, says he wasn’t confused by the old signage, but that the change is a welcomed one.

“I think they look better, they’re [more appealing] and more presentable,” he said. “It makes it more noticeable.”

A change in Townsend’s new strategy is that coffee cups, milk cartons and juice boxes can now be recycled.

“We’re trying to mimic what the city of London is doing,” she said. “Because our students living off-campus are hopefully recycling and we’re wanting to make it so that when they come into the college, it’ll be the same.”

Consistency is key.

“We also want the bins to be arrange particularly where they are mounted,” Townsend said. “We want them to be arranged landfill, paper, containers so it gets stuck in people’s heads.”

Townsend welcomes comments and concerns and can be reached at sustainability@fanshawec.ca.