Residence Hall Recycling

Residence Halls

University Housing and Waste Management Services provide a recycling opportunity for all 10,000 students living in UM's 15 residence halls.

All student rooms are provided with a blue recycling tote. The tote is considered part of the room inventory. Students are responsible for removing their own trash and recyclables from their rooms, and bringing it to the nearest Waste/Recycling Closet in their hallway (or to an outside collection site for some buildings). Please see the recycling tote insert (Adobe PDF document - 175k) for more information.

Click here for more information on Northwood Community Apartments Recycling.
Click here for the Northwood Community Apartments Recycling Guide.

The system varies by building. The following halls have Waste/Recycling Closets on each floor:

• Alice Lloyd
• Bursley
• Couzens
• East Quad
• Markley
• Mosher-Jordon
• Stockwell
• South Quad
• West Quad

In each closet, cans are labeled for or , along with a poster on the door explaining how to "Sort it Right." Most Waste/Recycling Closets have the same configuration. They do vary in size, however, so not all materials can be collected in each one. In these cases check all the Waste/Recycling Closets along the hallway to find all the recycling bins. (Contact the Building Facility Manager if recycling bins are missing from your hall area.)

In all closets, corrugated cardboard, pizza boxes and cereal boxes should be stacked neatly and placed on the shelf for recycling. (No crusts or plastic box liners, please.) The recyclable materials and trash from hallway closets are emptied on a regular basis by the University Housing custodial staff. Be sure to thank your custodian for recycling!

The residence halls listed below do not have Waste/Recycling Closets. Residents are asked to recycle by bringing their materials to blue recycling dumpsters and carts located outside in the parking lot or by the building's loading dock.

• Baits I and II
• Betsy Barbour
• Fletcher Hall
• Helen Newberry
• Oxford Housing

Beyond the Recycling Closet

In case you're wondering where all the material goes after the waste closet, this section is for you. All recyclable materials are collected by Housing Facilities custodial staff, and brought to the recycling dumpsters and carts at the loading dock of each residence hall. From there, Waste Management Services staff pick up the cardboard, newspaper, mixed office paper, magazines, metal cans, glass bottles, #1, and #2 plastic bottles, aerosol cans...well, you get the point. When the truck is full, materials are delivered to the city of Ann Arbor's Materials Recovery Facility (or MRF, rhymes with "Smurf") located in the southeast corner of Ann Arbor, about 4 miles from campus. Paper items are collected in a different recycling truck than the mixed containers.

All paper materials are dumped onto the floor and pushed onto a conveyor belt, which goes to a sorting area. Workers at the MRF sort the materials. After sorting, the separated papers are moved by conveyor to a baler. The bales, weighing about 1,200 pounds each, are loaded onto a semi-trailer and shipped to a paper mill.

The mixed containers, metals, glass and plastic, are sorted both mechanically and manually at the MRF. Like the paper, all the materials are dumped onto the floor and pushed onto a conveyor belt which goes to a different sorting area where 13 sorts are performed. Recyclables pass under a magnetized drum. At this point, the steel is pulled off to the side. Next, the remaining materials pass sorting stations where materials are hand sorted into specific categories. Trash and non-recyclables are also removed for disposal in a landfill. All the materials that came in together on the truck are now sorted into distinct categories. Once sorted, the materials are shipped back to manufacturers, glass factories, and steel mills to be turned into new, useful, recycled content products.

Res Ed Staff Can Help Make Recycling Happen in the Residence Halls

Resident Advisors can be instrumental in making the recycling program a success. Here are some educational program ideas.

1. Actions Speak Louder Than Words
   Serve as a role model by encouraging students to recycle during "in-house" functions by making a point of recycling pizza boxes at the close of your program. Periodically, check the materials in the waste closets to see how well your hall is doing at following the guidelines. Post signs or information that you'll receive from Waste Management Services, or create your own unique, colorful posters. Waste Management Services can give you statistics on what each residence hall recycles each month. Encourage students to recycle their materials on a regular basis and avoid the big "pile up" that typically occurs at the end of a semester.
   
   
2. Keeping Them Informed
   Waste Management Services has several 30 minute interactive programs you can schedule to educate students about the recycling program, raise awareness of student impacts on the environment and give you a chance to sponsor a "fun" activity. Who knows, maybe a recycling or environmental awareness program can win you a Resident Staff Programming Recognition Award!
   
   
3. Promote Events in a Waste-Free way
   Whether you' re promoting a recycle night or any other event, you can serve as a role model to advertise in a "least waste" way. Avoid slipping flyers under everyone' s door. Instead, use your bulletin boards in a creative way to post information. Make personal invitations out of scrap paper, cardboard boxes or folded old newspapers. Write recycling messages on soup cans and hang them from the ceiling or turn them into a mobile. Be creative in a waste-reduced way.
   
   
4. Conduct a Tour of Your Residence Hall
   Begin at a waste/recycling closet, then move to the common areas and lobby where other recyclables are collected. Visit the loading dock where larger storage carts and dumpsters await pick-up by Waste Management Services staff. (Some docks are restricted in the evening, so check in advance with the Building Facility Manager of your hall.) While you are on the tour, look inside the recycling containers and check for unacceptable items, otherwise known as contamination. Look inside trash cans and check for material that could have been recycled. Brainstorm and discuss ideas that can reduce contamination problems and increase participation in recycling.
   
   
5. Sponsor a "Recycle Night"
   A brief program early in the semester may help avoid the confusion and questions you' ll likely get later on. The information presented here should be sufficient to start up a discussion about recycling. Ask residents what the recycling program was like in their home town. Discuss whether recycling should be "mandatory" or not. Talk about the "psychology" of recycling or the "politics" of managing waste in a community. Contact Waste Management Services for names of speakers or "experts" from the local community.

Northwood Community Apartments Recycling information is here.

University Housing Sustainability Program

University Housing is committed to being an environmentally-friendly place to live and work so sustainability has been and continues to be one of the organization's major goals. University Housing's Sustainability Oversight Committee encourages more sustainable practice in University Housing. This means living, working, and behaving in ways that meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

You can help with this effort! University Housing is looking for students to become "LeeDers", or Living examples of eco-friendly Decision making. Students can pledge to commit to practice sustainable behaviors. Click here to learn more about University Housing's sustainability efforts and the LeeDer program.