Green Party

Moravian College and Moravian Theological Seminary have won a Green Ribbon Award from the city of Bethlehem for recycling efforts in 2004. The ribbon was awarded by Mayor John Callahan ’91 at a ceremony today. Doug Plotts, director of Facilities, thanks all the staff members who help out with recycling efforts, especially Bernie Benko, who dealt with the Bethlehem Recycling Center and its log-in system.

“Well, who else?” says Bernie, who joined the College staff in 2001. “I’m over there at least twice a day, five days a week.”

Tom Marshall, director of the center, “is quite impressed with the amount and frequency of our contributions,” Doug says.

Marshall will visit campus in March to film a short commercial about recycling in which the College will be featured. We also will be spotlighted in the quarterly recycling newsletter that goes to all city residents.

Barbara Schultz, assistant director of general services in Facilities, compiled these lists of recycling efforts and benefits:

• Dorms: recyclables and paper.

• Seminary housing: Widows’ House recycles cans, bottles, glass, newspapers, cardboard. City collects recyclables at houses on Main, Laurel, and West Greenwich streets. Cardboard collected at dumpsters.

• Academic/administration buildings: office paper, newspaper, cardboard.

• Campuswide cardboard salvage.

• Food Service: cardboard boxes.Events in Johnston Hall and the ARC, cans and bottles.

• Furniture salvage: RePlace (Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Hospital) gets used office furniture, classroom equipment, and year-end dorm cleanout.

• Appliances: All unrepairable appliances are recycled through city center. Freon removed by College.

• Building supplies: metal piping, fencing, plumbing parts.

• Paper: All sensitive records (payroll, budget, financial aid, registrar, etc.) are shredded at recycling center under secure conditions.

• Books: Reeves Library purges about 2,000 surplus books each year. “They got rid of 5,000 books last summer,” Bernie says.) Offered free to the campus community, then taken to recyling center.

• Grounds debris: Twice weekly in spring and fall, our trucks dump leaves, brush, tree limbs, grass clippings at city compost center.

As one California third-grader wrote after a visit to the Yolo landfill:

Trash is good, trash is nice,
It’s anything but waste!
Trash is great, trash is a gift,
It’s full of food and paste!

-WILLIAM (COLIN) SHAKESPEARE

Test your knowledge of Moravian’s waste management program. How many outdoor trash cans are there on campus? How many dumpsters?

Why Recycle?

Cutbacks in dumpster costs. They are now emptied twice or three times a week instead of five times.

Savings of about $4,000 in trash costs annually.

Furniture and appliance storage costs reduced. Usable storage space freed up.

City and Good Shepherd's RePlace earn money from our discards.

We help preserve the environment.

We teach students, staff, faculty, and community to be responsible stewards of our natural and consumable resources.