20,000 paper recycling boxes hit Monash Campuses

While most of us have been comfortably tucked up in bed a team of dedicated workers has been busy distributing 20,000 paper recycling boxes throughout the university.  The team has often worked from 5am making sure every work station throughout the six Victorian campuses has had a box positioned beneath the desk.

Larger boxes have also been placed beside photocopiers, in foyers, within teaching spaces and in large shared office areas.  Elana Welsh, of the University's Office of Environmental Sustainability said: "While doing the Clayton campus we had a start time of 5am and finished up at 8am. While most of us drove in, some of the students who helped out rode their bikes in from as far as Glen Waverley."  The Clayton team was led by Facilities and Services Cleaning Manager Arthur Brent. Also taking part were tOES director Paul Barton, two of his team, Elana and Jun Li, and a group of 12 casual staff mainly made up of Monash students.

Elana added: "We had anywhere from two to eight of the team here at any one time to help while we carried out distribution over the past four weeks.  "The cleaners have also been extremely helpful, assisting us to gain entry to the buildings and helping us out with any nooks and crannies we might have missed and providing us with feedback. On the whole the program has been very well received.

While our largest campus, Clayton, was completed, the job was being carried out on all the other Australian campuses.  Staff at those campuses took responsibility for distribution, with some of the Monash students being brought in to lend a hand. 

Monash is working with Amcor, the global packaging company, to ensure that our waste paper is recycled rather than ending up on landfill sites. Up to the start of the new scheme paper represented up to 40 per cent of the university's overall waste going to landfill.  "We would much prefer that our office paper is able to be recycled back into good quality recycled content office paper." said Elana.

Meanwhile, tOES says it is preferred that all cardboard, newspaper, heavily coloured paper, magazines and phone books are recycled in the cardboard recycling cages or skips. The location of cardboard recycling facilities and assistance with other recycling matters can be found by going to www.monash.edu.au/green.