INTRODUCTION
The A.S. Recycling Program is operated and funded by students at UCSB in order to provide an efficient and lasting recycling infrastructure that adapts to new technologies. A.S. Recycling strives to “close the loop,” ending the waste cycle by reducing consumption, reusing new materials, and, most importantly, buying recycled material.
Student staff collects commingled and office pack recycling from over 90 outdoor receptacles called “Berthas”. Students utilize specially constructed tricycles to sort and separate the recycling and bring it back to their Eucalyptus Grove recycling center.
A.S. Recycling also does indoor collection for several buildings on campus.
ELECTRONIC OR TECHNO RECYCLING
The Techno Recycling program was created in 2006 to divert the electronic waste that would potentially pollute landfills. With the expansion of the program, AS Recycling diverted 4 tons of e-waste this past year alone!
The Techno Recycling Program also provides quarterly workshops for both the UCSB campus and the local community.
THE GROVE (GERMINIATE RESILIENT ORGANIC VITAL ENVIRONMENTS)
The GROVE is a department of A.S. Recycling. Its goal is to provide a space to teach sustainable practices that can be practiced by community members. The outdoor classroom is designed to be a sustainable landscape filled with case studies of organic urban farming techniques and flora native to Santa Barbara.
Workshops hosted by the GROVE are free to the public and include educational tours, farmer lectures, and hands on gardening activities. The workshops are meant to be useful for active gardeners and to educate consumers about what it means to eat “organically”.
The GROVE has an active blog filled with gardening tips, posts about sustainable events around the community, and updates on Grove activity at Tumblr. Please also join the Facebook group to be involved in our workshops or to correspond with our student team.
EVENT RECYCLING
In an effort to reduce our environmental impact and promote sustainability on the UCSB campus, AS Recycling Zero-Waste Events Services helps many groups and organization host zero-waste events. Providing recycling, compost and trash bins made of 100% recycled polypropylene plastic, students help divert as much as possible from entering the landfill. With an average 90% diversion rate, Zero waste events are not only a great way to show your commitment to the environment, but also create a living model of sustainability for your guests.
Hosting zero-waste events is a whole system approach: ‘waste’ is eliminated from the system, efficiency is improved and all material resources are reused, repaired, or recycled back into the environment and the marketplace.
COMPOSTING
The Department of Public Worms (DPW) was originally created to provide vermicomposting service for local eateries and to educate the public regarding composting in general. As part of A.S. Recycling the DPW collects and composts organic waste, including fruit & vegetable scraps, spent coffee grounds and filters, tea, eggshells from various campus departments, Isla Vista businesses and local households. The composting is done using a variety of different species of worms—usually red wigglers, white worms and earthworms—to convert a heterogeneous mixture of decomposing vegetable or food waste into nutrient rich, organic fertilizer known as castings. The worm castings contain water-soluble nutrients making vermicompost a nutrient-rich organic fertilizer and soil conditioner.
EDUCATION AND OUTREACH
Alongside its tangible waste management services, A.S. Recycling is committed to outreach. Recycling provides educational programs, activities, events and workshops for campus, local schools and local businesses to improve recycling and composting efforts.