OCC looking good on paper

Alex Coolman

He’s been through the dark days of the paper market.

Michael Carey, the director of Orange Coast College’s recycling program,

remembers how it was a year and a half ago when the companies that buy

materials from him were paying only about $15 for a ton of clean waste

paper.

After he figured in labor costs and the expense of shipping the stuff,

Carey says he lost money on the deal.

But that didn’t stop him from trying to recycle as much paper as he

could. And today, with the price of paper at about $115 per ton, the school is in the middle of a paper drive. It hopes to save 2,000 trees’

worth of the stuff.

That’s about 117 tons of paper, an amount worth almost $13,500 -- as long

as the market doesn’t fall.

Maintaining a commitment to the environment in spite of financial

pressure is something the college’s recycling program has been doing for

a long time. Today marks the 30th anniversary of its creation, making it

the oldest college recycling effort in the nation.

Carey, who has been leading the school’s effort for 15 years, says the

challenges of keeping the program effective have changed over time.

Not only are a lot more people in the recycling game than in the past, he

said, but state legislation is putting pressure on colleges and

universities to recycle greater amounts of waste.

“A lot of the colleges are really freaking out right now about what

they’re going to do,” Carey said.

A law enacted by California legislators took effect at the beginning of

this year, mandating that many state agencies, including colleges and

universities, divert 25% of their trash from landfills by 2002 and 50% by

2004.

Currently, Carey said, OCC manages to recycle about 22% of the waste it

produces.

Bumping that number up slightly might not be such a challenge, Carey

said. But serious increases in recycling levels of the sort mandated by

the law will mean tackling a whole new dimension of the waste game: the

so-called “green” waste produced by landscaping.

Recycle all the paper you want, Carey said, but “you can’t get 50%

without addressing green waste.”

The school already makes some efforts to deal with the landscape debris

problem. Grass clippings are left on lawns as mulch rather than being

carted away to a landfill.

But fallen leaves, tree branches and sources such as food waste will have

to be dealt with to bring the numbers up to the desired levels, Carey

said.

“That’s where we are lacking. We’ll obviously have to close that gap.”

Though the market for some of these materials is tight, the school’s

program manages to turn a profit, and it has distributed more than

$50,000 in scholarships to OCC students since 1980.

Elaine Braun, a sophomore who received one of the scholarships, works at

the school’s facility on Adams Avenue. She pays out money to the people

who bring in bottles and cans to the center.

“I always wanted to work here,” she said. “Before I ever got a job here,

I was always recycling.”

The environmental and financial successes of the program -- which

receives no operating money from the college -- have made it a model for

other universities.

Programs at Cal State Long Beach, Cal State Sacramento and Cal State

Chico have been developed based on the OCC model, Carey said.

Barbara Kopicki, who attended the school while growing up in Newport

Beach, is now the recycling coordinator for Cal State Chico’s program.

She said the role the OCC recycling center plays as a resource for the

larger community was influential in the development of her school’s

facilities.

“Because I was familiar with the concept of a community center at a

college, that influenced us to see a need in that area,” she said.

The challenges of being an effective recycling center keep changing as

time goes on, but Carey says it’s not too hard to stay enthusiastic about

the importance of the job. The students on his staff never seem to lack

inspiration.

“Kids are the greatest motivators of adults that there are,” he said.