There is a new home for Huntsville’s Recycling Center. Last month the center moved from its previous location on Palm Street to a new location at 590 IH-45 North. According to City Sanitation Superintendent Charles Stark, the recycling program has been going on for more than four years and was started in response to requests from Huntsville residents.Some of the materials received at the recycling center comes straight from Sam Houston State University itself. Recycling at SHSU has fallen under the university’s vending department since 1993. “We go around to the different departments and collect paper to take to the recycling center,” said SHSU Vending Department Accounting Clerk Judy Bolander. There are aluminum can recycling and paper recycling bins located in residence halls, academic buildings and other various places across the campus. The paper recycling bins are located prominently in the computer labs on campusWhen asked how many tons of recyclable materials were collected by the city and the university, neither Stark nor Bolander could answer. According to Blander, the University kept records until they turned the collection of materials over to the city. “At one time, we did keep records,” said Bolander.Recycling has a positive impact on the community and the world, both economically and environmentally. However, recycling is not economically feasible in the short term. Some experts are confident that recycling will be economically feasible in the long term, as landfill sites become used for other functions such as parks. Recycling also reduces the number of illnesses caused by pollution, as materials stored at landfills cause smells and can potentially leak into underground water supplies.Ecologically, recycling is feasible in some aspects, and not feasible in others. Where trees can be replaced easily by planting another tree in its place, other materials like aluminum and iron come from ore deposits that cannot be replaced.Not many SHSU students practice recycling. Junior Jason Plotkin doesn’t think there’s enough encouragement on campus to recycle and feels that there needs to be a push made for it.”There’s no push on campus for students to recycle besides the occasional recycling bin here or there. I feel that if a student organization on campus could put some initiative into it, this would be a successful endeavor,” says PlotkinFreshman Stuart Triplett says that he has no idea where to recycle, so he takes most of his stuff out to the nearest dumpster, even though he throws out plastic bottles and cans among his own trash.”I would recycle if there was a recycle bin, but there isn’t any that I know of. So I just take my trash out to the dumpster.” says Triplett.The City of Huntsville Recycling Center is open Mondays through Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and accepts newspapers, plastic items, and aluminum cans. For more information on the Recycling Center call 294-5723. For directions to the Recycling Center you can view a map online at http://ci.huntsville.tx.us/parks/recycling.html.
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