The University of Mississippi Office of Sustainability collected 8,000 pounds of glass during its semesterly glass recycling drive on Saturday, April 18. Volunteers unloaded glass from locals’ cars in the Jackson Avenue Center parking lot for Door 2 Door Recycling to transport to its facility in Jackson, Miss., where the glass will be processed into powder. Once this is complete, the glass will be transformed into useful building materials.
John Brugge, the associate director of the Office of Sustainability and a Southern studies master’s student at the University of Mississippi, has worked to increase the glass drive’s impact.
“When you recycle something, it’s not enough to collect it, process it, sort it, clean it, whatever,” Brugge said. “You have to have someone, in the end, who can actually use the product.”
Brugge hopes to improve the turnout for recycling drives in the future.
“We’re getting the momentum built around it,” Brugge said. “Last time, we had several dozen people show up, but I think we could easily have hundreds if we build out our media outreach.”
Hailey Smith, an intern with the Office of Sustainability and a senior biological science and anthropology double major from Long Beach, Miss., believes student involvement in environmental projects is important.
“I’ve been involved with the Office of Sustainability my entire time at the university,” Smith said. “I wanted to get involved because I think it’s really important for people to learn how to be responsible stewards of our environment and just good members of our community.”
Each semester, UM and Mississippi State University compete to collect the most glass. Mississippi State has been dominant so far.
“We have never beat them,” Smith said. “State has done three more recycling drives than we have, so they have more continuity.”
However, Smith is encouraged by the gradual increase in donations.
“During the fall semester, we collected 8,000 pounds of glass, which is awesome because the first time we did it, we only had 2,000 pounds,” Smith said. “That was still a good starting number, but I’d love to see us get enough to beat State.”
Dani Duke, a local who moved to Oxford six months ago, immediately noticed the area’s lack of recycling infrastructure.
“It’s crazy to me, coming from California, that there aren’t many opportunities for recycling,” Duke said. “It would be great to have (collection events) more frequently, and I would absolutely participate if there were.”
Faith Young, the owner of Door 2 Door Recycling, said that the processed glass is an important ingredient in asphalt and insulation materials.
“The citizens know we’re coming, and they save up,” Young said. “We process the glass into fine powder, and where we ship it, they use it to make asphalt and insulation.”
According to Young, her organization’s work is a labor of love, not profit.
“We need 20,000 pounds (of glass) to ship it off, and we actually pay for shipping,” Young said. “We do the glass recycling because we know it needs to be recycled, not because we receive a dime. We would love to get some more funding so we can do it more than twice a year here.”
Brugge is excited about the university’s role in expanding recycling systems in the future.
“People here are really enthusiastic about recycling,” Brugge said. “I want us to have the best (recycling) systems in the state of Mississippi. In my opinion, Ole Miss should be the leader in these things. We’re the natural place for it.”
