Student Life

We’ve wondered that ourselves: most of us just place our recycling in the green recycling bins and never give it a second thought. So we asked Bill Hochstin, Director of Materials Management at the College, and Gary Hill, Director of Custodial and Recycling Services for the Facilities Operations and Management division and who manages the Dartmouth Recycles! program, for a breakdown of what goes where:

• Paper of all sorts (including cardboard) is collected and hauled to Northeast Waste Services, a local waste and recycling center. There, the paper is baled and sold back to paper mills. Proceeds from the sale of the paper are returned to Dartmouth Recycles!
• Glass (mostly bottles) is collected and transported to New London, NH where the Northeast Resource Recovery Association manages a program for all communities in New Hampshire. The glass is pulverized into a sand-type product that is reused as an additive to construction material on New Hampshire roads and highways.
• Aluminum cans and plastic containers are collected and shipped free of charge to the Casella Waste Management material recovery facility in Boston, where it is all sorted, baled, and sold on the commodity markets. Most of the plastic is exported, while the aluminum goes to domestic smelters.
• Organic materials from the College and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, such the food waste, yard waste, tree-stump grindings, and low-grade paper like pizza boxes, soiled napkins and paper cups, are composted into a highly enriched compost soil that is used on campus grounds.
• Electronics, like computers, televisions or stereo components, are either rebuilt and sold or dismantled and all of the components are recycled as base commodities. Dartmouth has an active relationship with WinCycle, a computer recycling program in nearby Windsor, VT. The leaded glass in cathode ray tubes (such as in TVs or computer monitors) is sold back to manufacturers, which need leaded glass for their new products. Metals are resold; the plastic is made into sound barriers for highways, industrial flooring, and decking.
• Recycled clothing goes in a couple of directions. This year, the Office of Residential Life’s “Dormitory Move-Out Program” will collect and sort discarded clothing for the College’s Iraqi Kids Project providing clothing for children in Iraq. Other recycled clothing goes to the Listen Center or to Southeastern Vermont Community Action, both local charities, which will recycle clothing that is not resold at outlet stores run by both charities. Recycled fabrics are generally shredded and made into filler materials for manufacturing or rags and mops.
• Masonry products such as bricks or concrete are ground down to small pieces that are then reused as clean fill on construction products.
• Scientific equipment is either resold or dismantled and recycled into basic commodities, which are sold.
• Books are reused, sold, donated to local libraries, or recycled.
• Bicycles, appliances, furniture are recycled under a student initiative as part of the Sustainable Dartmouth program. Graduating students can donate appliances, furniture, and bicycles, which are then sold to returning or incoming students, with the proceeds going to an Upper Valley charity.
• Other items, such as toner cartridges for printers, cell phones, and “universal waste” – fluorescent and incandescent bulbs, ballasts, and wet- and dry-cell batteries – are recycled by the College’s custodial staff and are disassembled and remade into their original products again.

For a complete list of items and current information on Dartmouth’s efforts to reduce the volume and toxicity of its solid waste, visit the Dartmouth Recycles! web site and the Dartmouth Sustainability Initiative.

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