Sustainability Proposal

Many bottled beverage companies today are flourishing because of their great tasting beverages and the convenience of mobility of bottles. Unfortunately the average consumer does not recycle plastic bottles most soft drinks are contained in. The material used to bottle the every day soft drink we get from the vending machines in our various universities’ buildings, the surrounding convenient stores, and various surrounding restaurants is called polyethylene tetrathalate. Polyethylene tetrathalate, PET for short is a very capable recyclable material that is used all the time by the massive student body of the University of Pittsburgh. I propose a better method of recycling such bottles providing incentive for students, staff, and others to recycle their empty bottles.

In my time studying abroad in the Universität of Duisburg-Essen I’ve learned and seen an innovative way to save the environment by recycling. In the many university’s buildings there where these vending-like machines that would recycle PET bottles of many shapes and sizes and are called reverse-vending machines. The motivation was to charge a “pfand”, or deposit for every bottle purchased. When the consumer was finished with the bottle, he/she may take it to the machine that collects the empty bottles and get refunded the deposit. This method was very easy and gave students a good clean habit of recycling. Regarding the method of refunding the students, there are two interesting ways. One quick way for refunding the deposit is by putting the deposit as credit on the students’ ID card by a magnetic card swiper similar to the devices on the new Self-Service Printers. The other method of refunding the deposit also works for non-students, which involves a small printed receipt of the deposit. The consumer can then take the receipt to a nearby establishment that supports such environmentally safe acts and have the cashier refund them based on the receipt. A deposit of such bottles may seem slightly excessive, but it can be a very small amount to not make a dent in anyone’s wallet or purse. I suggest a range of $0.05-$0.15 cents because it is a small cost for a good cause and many of the Deposit states such as Michigan and Connecticut charge the same deposit. This deposit is an interesting idea because a small fee for a better cause, it provides incentive to recycle, and a portion of each deposit per bottle can be invested in maintenance for these machines or even new products.

These new and interesting reverse-vending machines are booming throughout the globe and the only distributor in the United States is a company called Envipco (“Environmental Products Corporation”), which is a global recycling company, located in Naugatuck, Connecticut. According to Envipco the ideal reverse-vending machine for a university our size is a machine that requires the following:

• High capacity of advanced materials.
• Fully weather proof enclosure.
• Freestanding.
• Continuous feed entry port.

The ideal product for our university is the CFD 1500 Dual Function Machine, which fulfills all of the requirements, listed above. Basic information of the CFD 1500 DFM is as follows. The cabinet is 32” wide by 32” deep and 75” high with a 13.5 cubic foot storage capacity and tamper-proof doors and locks. This machine consumes up to 45 units per minute and flattens or flakes the material. The CFD 1500 DFM accepts not only PET, but aluminum as well. The can size the machine accepts is up to 1 liter cans and 3 liter PET bottles. The capacity of products the device recycles is up to 1,600 cans and up to 800 PET 20 ounce bottles. Unfortunately this advanced system can be quite costly where the base price for the CFD 1500 costs $17,609. There is also an added price of $5,000-$7,000 for interactive modules which includes an attractive large interactive LCD screen and card swiper.

Because Pennsylvania is a Non-Deposit state, it is difficult to apply deposits on everyday products because usually the bottle companies take care of that and provide easy methods for recycling your empty bottles. I propose to apply a small deposit for each bottle purchased of $0.05 to $0.15 from retailers and a portion of that could be applied to maintenance of the machines, training for maintenance, and or purchasing new machines. This can be very profitable in the long-term perspective because the average cost per pound of aluminum is $0.70-$0.80 and the average cost per pound of plastic is $0.20-$0.30.  If the entire student population of about 20,000 recycles their plastic bottles once at $0.25 per bottle, that’s $5,000 from recycling. For start up costs it can be quite expensive since large bottling companies are not supporting recycling in non-deposit states like Pennsylvania, but with enough support by many environmentally aware students and organizations many including myself foresee this proposal a very capable and fun way to recycle.  For example there is an organization called the University of Pittsburgh Green Fund, which supports many student sustainable projects like this one proposed.

Provided that it may seem mediocre for being refunded for one bottle, remember a lot of a little adds up. By getting the students to practice recycling around campus this can influence us all to take good habits home.