SUNY Cortland Recycles One Third of its Trash

07/19/2016 

Last year, SUNY Cortland recycling efforts kept nearly 175 tons of plastic, paper and cardboard out of the solid waste stream, according to the company that collects and hauls the College’s refuse.

That diverted mountain of recyclables is equivalent to about a third of the 534 tons of trash discarded by SUNY Cortland’s students, faculty and staff between June 1, 2015 and May 31, 2016, according to Rochester, N.Y.-based Waste Management.

Having trouble visualizing what that many recyclables might look like? Consider some other things that weigh about 175 tons:

• The largest great blue whale on record, an aquatic behemoth that stretched longer than a basketball court.

• The biggest aircraft on the planet, Russia’s massive Antonov An-225 Mira cargo jet, which beats the Boeing 747 passenger jet by nearly 56 feet.

• The building-sized statue of Abraham Lincoln seated inside the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Now keep in mind that paper and plastic weighs a lot less than marble, metal or blubber so the volume of trash SUNY Cortland’s recycling program kept out of area landfills is several times larger than those examples.

Maybe it would be easier to visualize the College’s recycling success with some different, and more meaningful, comparisons:

• Diverted paper from SUNY Cortland’s trash cans potentially saved the lives of 1,825 trees, according to Waste Management’s annual recycling report. That’s the equivalent of more than 2.6 million sheets of newsprint.

• By recycling a third of its trash, thereby preventing the need to process raw materials from scratch, the College saved about 718,000 kilowatts of electricity. That’s enough to meet the annual energy needs of 59 American homes.

• Similarly, recycling saved more than a million gallons of water from being used. That amount of water could supply a full day of showers, cooking, cleaning and drinking for 14,192 Americans.