MSU Student Hopes to Broaden Recycling Services

You might have received a visit from Nathan Capper to your own home, or perhaps noticed him walking around town with a petition pressed under his arm. The MSU student is organizing efforts to make recycling services easily available to all apartment residents in East Lansing, and hopes to raise your awareness and gain your support.

Currently, city ordinance requires buildings built after 2007 to provide recycling services. Additionally, if an apartment building has fewer than 20 individual apartments and there's enough space on the property, then the city will provide curbside, single strain recycling services.

Unfortunately, a significant number of the apartment buildings in East Lansing do not fit the above criteria. Capper lives in a complex that does not provide recycling services, and explained the predicament he faces, “I don't have a car, I have to borrow someone's car, to go take recycling to the MSU recycling center and I just think that that's unacceptable.” Considering the inconvenience of a trip to the center, particularly for students without convenient means of transportation, it is not surprising that the majority of residents in these apartments “Just throw everything into the landfill dumpster,” as Capper lamented.

As part of his efforts to change the current state of wastefulness, Capper has met with University President Lou Anna Simon and East Lansing Mayor Nathan Triplett to discuss the issue and consider possible solutions. Capper has also gone canvassing in local neighborhoods and said, “The permanent residents that live in the homes here, they just can't believe that this is something that isn't already in place. I'm just trying to raise awareness of that. I've got several hundred signatures on a petition from East Lansing residents.”

This community support is a vital component of Capper's plan and a main reason why he thinks it will succeed. He believes that there is “no better place than East Lansing to create a model for sustainable living because it is of so much importance to the school and the city.” Following his discussion with Mayor Triplett, Capper is confident that the city is willing to work with him to remedy this issue.

The spirit of collaboration that he has felt from city and University leaders makes Capper hopeful about his future goals. He will be working with The Commission on the Environment, and described what he hopes to be the outcome of his work: “What I'm trying to do here is form an organization. The first step is to get this fixed in East Lansing and then my next step is forming a national organization to implement this model throughout different cities that house large universities.”

To those who remain unconvinced about the importance of recycling, Capper would like to state his belief that “We are given a responsibility to take care of the Earth,” and emphasize the fact that, “Recycling is easy. All it really takes is setting aside a little space, and then just really thinking about what is going into the trash because that's just going to go straight into a landfill.”

Capper encourages interested citizens to email him at capperna@msu.edu.