Campus Recycling’s first attempt to utilize reusable plates at the Willamette Valley Folk Festival was hampered by the loss and theft of nearly 500 of the 4,000 plates.
“Over 500 plates are missing,” said Student Recycling Coordinator Jeff Ziglinski. “It just breaks my heart.” The total bill for the missing plates is nearly $800. About 400 of the plates were the 9-inch size, 50 were oval-shaped plates and 30 were a 10-inch size.
Jonathan Borgida, events recycling coordinator, said that there are still plates showing up as campus grounds workers find them in the bushes, but he believes the total missing will stay about 500.
Student and non-student employees at Campus Recycling have been working for years to reduce the amount of waste generated at campus festivals and events. After several years of composting waste at these events, Campus Recycling decided to ask the ASUO for money to purchase reusable plates and forks. In the winter, ASUO gave the group nearly $8,000 to spend on plates and forks. The money came from over-realized funds, the amount of money left over when projected enrollment is lower than the actual enrollment.
Ziglinski said that the recycling staff used several methods during the
three-day festival to encourage people to return the plates, including making announcements on stage and posting signs on the vendor booths.
He said he assumes that the plates were either stolen outright or people walked off to eat at other locations.
“We barely found any that were sitting around. We were on it as good as we could,” he said. “It was our first time, and I feel we did good for the pilot project.”
While members of ASUO are angered at the loss, they are mostly concerned with the fact that Campus Recycling did not institute a deposit system as they said it would.
Student Senator Mary Elizabeth Madden and recently departed ASUO Vice President Joy Nair were especially concerned because they remember Campus Recycling proposing a deposit system when the group asked for the money.
“I think that when the Senate approved the money there was the concept of a deposit, and I guess that didn’t happen,” Nair said. “That’s too bad.”
Madden suggested that in the future people be given the option of using the plates in the hopes that a higher percentage of the plates will be returned.
“The fact that 20 percent were stolen seems like such a waste of money,” Madden said.
The intricacy of a deposit system prevented Campus Recycling from using it this year, Borgida said. He said that there would need to be a central location to get plates because it would be too complicated for vendors to handle the money. He also said there will always be problems recovering plates at a free open-air festival.
“I don’t think you could ever go to deposit here,” he said.
Before the event, Borgida didn’t think the organization would have any problem with people stealing the plates. He estimated that the loss of the plates would be at most 300.
Borgida is already planning to use plates at next year’s events, and he said that they still have enough plates to use them again. However, they will need more help from the food vendors, which would include not only telling customers to return the plates, but giving monetary contributions.
“The food vendors definitely saved a considerable amount on buying paper plates,” Borgida said. “It would be good if they could pass the savings on to us.”
Borgida also suggested the idea of printing the recycling logo and a message on the plates.
Campus Recycling distributed surveys about the festival’s recycling program and received 300 responses. Overall, Borgida found that many people at the festival supported and were excited about the program.
“It worked,” he said. “And we proved it worked.”