This past summer I participated in a media internship in Urbino, Italy, and I stayed on campus at Urbino University.
It was an amazing experience.
I learned a lot about multimedia and about Urbino, a small college town.
Among the interesting things I learned, outside the classroom, was about a different method to recycle.
Urbino University has two cafeterias. In both of the cafeterias, there are assorted recycling bins.
Also, there are “recycling” machines the size of small refrigerators that we used daily after each meal.
We ate on paper plates, drank from plastic cups, used plastic eating utensils and paper napkins.
All the items, even the plastic wrapping that our plastic forks and spoons, came in was 100 percent biodegradable.
After every meal, we used trays to transport our used paper plates, plastic forks, spoons, knifes, napkins to the 5-foot tall machines.
We tapped a sliding door of the machine with our tray.
A light turned green when the door opened, and we emptied the plastic and paper product into the machine’s large mouth. (We dumped any left-over food in the bins beside the machine.)
The red light would come on and the large mouth would close and chew, (I mean smash) all the waste into a small box.
Sometimes we had to wait our turn in line for the red light to turn green.
But I didn’t mind.
The chore that the white waste-eating machine was fascinating to watch.
When I completed my internship and returned home in July, I decided to research recycling.
I has since learned that a well-run recycling program costs less to operate than waste collection, landfilling and incineration.
According to the website “Recycling Evolution,” recycling creates 1.1 million U.S. jobs, $236 billion in gross annual sales, and $37 billion in annual payrolls.
For every job collecting recyclables, there are 26 jobs in processing the materials and manufacturing them into new products.
Recycling creates four jobs for every one job created in the waste management and disposal industries.
People don’t realize how much recycling a small piece of paper or a plastic water bottle could benefit the world.
I miss Urbino, the cafeteria and the big-mouth recycling machine.
I hope someday soon that WSSU gets one of those machines. Not only are they useful but they also can be quite entertaining.