Over 22,000 students attend Diablo Valley College’s two campuses. And with such high enrollment numbers comes a predictable result: lots of plastic waste.
“In my observations, most [of the] plastic students use are utensils,” said Katrina Coleman, who has worked part-time for two semesters as a cafeteria cashier on the Pleasant Hill campus.
“They might grab a fork, spoon and knife, maybe even grab two forks for whatever reason. The question is, are students recycling it, and if they are not, then it probably needs to be rethought,” she said.
Yet there may be a bigger problem. Even if every student followed proper recycling protocols and disposed of their waste in the correct bins, most of DVC’s single-use plastic products, like utensils and food containers, end up in landfills anyway because the plastic can only be recycled under strict guidelines.
Throughout the college campus, there are about 17 “three-stream” bins offering multiple recycling and trash options, according to Lonnie Sampson, who works in custodial management at DVC. In the line of three connected bins, one is for compost (green), one for recycling (blue), and one for landfill (black), each with a different picture indicating where the item of trash should go.
According to Troupe Waste & Reycling, for a plastic item to be recycled, it must have no trace of food or liquid. The site states that it’s crucial for recyclable materials to remain clean and dry, preserved in their highest quality form. “Dry recyclables are less likely to cause machine failures, threaten the well-being of workers, or cause any other problems during processing,” says the site.
But this poses a problem, since students don’t generally wash and dry single-use food containers before tossing them in the blue bin. As a result, when it’s not recycled, plastic can take decades to decompose, and can leave behind microplastics which pollute our air, food and water.
Utensils are a particular concern for students as they ponder sustainable alternatives on campus. Ashley Ruiz, a 27-year-old psychology major, suggested that reusable utensils should be introduced at DVC.
“I can see the cafeteria using reusable utensils, having an area to put them in to be washed,” Ruiz said.
Bonnie Hazarabedian, the sustainability advisor for Republic Services, manages commercial and presidential accounts within the City of Pleasant Hill. She said she meets with customers to establish service schedules and review proper waste protocols, educates people how to practice sustainability, and ensures they have the correct waste bin collection size.
Hazarabedian started working with Republic Services around the time it began reviewing DVC’s waste policies under its waste hauling contract with the city. Specifically, she looked at what kinds of waste existed on campus, and what improvements were needed for the school to achieve better trends in recycling.
She said DVC might consider replacing plastic with compostable bamboo or birch-based utensils, since “they truly are compostable because they were once alive.”
However, according to Hazarabedian, compostable containers present their own concern, as students won’t be able to see the food they’re buying. Hazarabedian said she and her department have been juggling with various plans and ideas over time.
“We were pushing for compostable [packaging] because it can be dirty and full of food,” she said. “I think one of the suggestions that we crossed out a year or so ago is possibly having a sample food item under the heat lamps.”
Meanwhile, the chair of DVC’s sustainability committee, David Hagerty, has aimed to redirect much of the school’s plastic waste away from landfills while encouraging more expansive recycling and composting solutions — including attempting to introduce a new recycling program in the cafeteria.
Hagerty said his group and the cafeteria manager have been working to offer more compostable containers, which is expected to happen this semester.
“Efforts such as those in the cafeteria to replace plastic containers with compostable ones are a far more sustainable option than recycling,” Hagerty said, “since a majority of the plastics we dispose of will never be reused.”
Hagerty said he has collaborated with student interns and members of the student government to assist in educating other students on sorting waste.
He said he has also worked with the custodial department to eliminate confusion about what is in fact compostable versus recyclable — in the process, creating a three-stream collection system with signs that show people what type of waste is acceptable in which bin.
The three-strem collection bins help separate the campus trash, rather than all of it being mixed into a single pile, which creates more work for Republic Services employees. Students can help separate compost, recyclable and landfill items in an effort to limit the amount of overall waste going to the landfill, Hagerty said.
According to Hazarabedian, the majority of the three-stream bins around campus are strategically grouped together, forcing students to make conscious decisions about where to put their trash.
By contrast, having only a compostable waste bin by itself gives students the convenience of throwing any type of trash away without regard to sustainability.
“The better we can do in making sure that we are not putting things in the recyclable stream that shouldn’t be there, the easier job the machinery and people at our recycling facilities will have,” said Hazarabedian.
DVC could see a greener future ahead, due to the environment-friendly programs already established, and with the help of further action to reduce the school’s use of plastic.
But in the end, said Coleman, the cafeteria worker, it depends on individuals stepping up to minimize their own trash.
“In the big picture, recycling helps the people and the earth,” she said, and “everybody has to be responsible for themselves and the waste they put out there.”