Winter 2000 Environmental Audit - A Custodian's Course in Trash

Winter 2000 - Environmental Audit

A Custodian's Course In Trash
by Jennifer Sutton

The squeaky hinges of Arntzen Hall's main-floor door mechanically swing shut and the echoes bounce throughout the hallway. Only hours before, hundreds of students filed in and out of mammoth lecture halls. After 5 p.m. the building is nearly empty except for the constant humming of a vacuum cleaner and the jingling jostle of keys.

An incessant drone envelops the stairwell and increases with each step toward the second floor. The fluorescent hallway reflects gleaming waxed tile containing few scrapes and scratches from daily battles with chairs, recycle bins and high heels. Ordinarily, one would overlook the cleanliness of the building en route to a professor's office, but close examination reveals the care and maintenance of a floor cleaner than most kitchen tables.

Out of a classroom, into the hallway appears Don Anderson, a father by day and custodian by night. His red, short-sleeved, cotton T-shirt and jeans clothe a frame that fills the doorway from top to bottom. He smiles behind a dark beard and glasses, welcoming late night visitors. He pushes a cart decorated with cleaning supplies, rags and a garbage can into another classroom; he stops to pick up an empty pop bottle.

Anderson chuckles at being in the limelight. He pauses, rubs his temples and glances at his callused hand as he pulls out a chair.

"There's something about getting the stain out of a carpet and waxing a floor that makes me feel like I have accomplished something," Anderson says.

Night after night Anderson moves from room to room, level to level picking up students’ wasteful remnants. Discarded waste spreads throughout classrooms, lecture halls, bathrooms and computer labs –mostly packaging and bottles from vending machines.

M&M's, Snickers, potato chips, gummy bears, soda pop and gum are consumed because they are quick and available. Junk food easily silences an incessantly snarling stomach. The rubbish is left behind as easily as its contents were consumed.

"Seventy to 80 percent of the garbage found in the classrooms is from packaged products," said Don Bakkensen, academic custodian supervisor.

"Students no longer eat regular meals, they graze on junk food," Anderson said. He tilts a desk on its end and candy wrappers, chip bags and pop bottles plummet to the floor.

Nearly 400 pounds of garbage, dirt and grime are excavated from Arntzen Hall and the Environmental Studies buildings each weeknight, Anderson said. Recyclable material makes up a lot of the garbage.

If custodians took the time to weed out recyclable material their jobs would take twice as long, Anderson said. Academic custodians are paid only to pick up garbage and clean spills; it's up to the students to run any recycling programs.

The Recycle Center, in effort to pinpoint student and faculty waste habits, conducted an analysis measuring what type and how much trash is thrown away. The center selected one bag each day for one week from the piles of trash bags outside Old Main and Humanities, Environmental Studies and Arntzen Hall, Miller Hall and the Fine Arts buildings. They sorted and measured the contents, concluding that 41 percent of the waste produced could be recycled.

"I want to teach Trash 101 to all students prior to graduation," Anderson said. Ideally, the course would teach students the essence of recycling and demonstrate what can be thrown in the garbage without remorse, he said.

Trash 101 would ban all spiral notebooks and fine those students who brought one, Anderson said; he suggested collected money go toward a Christmas fund for all the custodians.

To pass his class, students would need to know his pet peeves: staples in the carpet, sunflower seeds, spiral notebook dandruff and food or drinks in the computer labs.

Anderson said professors could also benefit.

"Some professors don't take out their recycling until it piles up, even though a bin sits less than 10 feet from their office," Anderson said. "The stacks of papers pile up so high that they cannot see the door or, in one case, displace large pieces of furniture."

Anderson recalls a retired mathematics professor who claimed someone had stolen his table lamp. His office had so much clutter that seven years later, when he retired and cleaned out his office, he found his "stolen" lamp.

Of all the areas Anderson cleans, the most frustrating are the computer labs. Every night Anderson picks up copies of stacked reports from computer printers.

Since Haggard Hall opened its new computer labs in January 1999, paper usage has increased by 40 percent.

"It's a major issue," said Fred Robson, computer maintenance supervisor. "It's not free and it costs Western a lot of money."

When a printer jams, students abandon their documents. Technicians fix the problem and pages of web sites, e-mails and rough drafts come pouring out of the machine, Robson said.

Students don't even account for their excessive printing mistakes. Instead, the papers build up beside the printer and are magically whisked away during the night. The final witness? The custodian.

"I'm at the bottom of the line and I don't see much recycling," Anderson said.

Winter 2000 - Environmental Audit

A Custodian's Course In Trash by Jennifer Sutton

A Custodian's Course In Trash
by Jennifer Sutton