Fraternities may gain notoriety around the country because of their parties, alcohol and scandals, but a successful Greek recycling program now entering its second year is helping to change this stereotype at the University.
University Greeks who drink canned soft drinks and beer can make their famed exuberance pay off for both the environment and the Charlottesville community.
"By recycling, fraternities are showing some responsibility to do everything we can to lessen the impact of dwindling resources," said Denny Clark, University superintendent of facilities management.
The Greek recycling program allows fraternity and sorority houses to earn money for collecting aluminum cans. For each pound of aluminum collected, the Inter-Fraternity Council and Inter-Sorority Council earn 33 cents. At the end of the school year, the IFC and ISC will donate the proceeds from the recycling program to Habitat for Humanity.
Program founder Peter Leary, IFC Service Chairman and Sigma Chi member, first thought about implementing a recycling program in Greek houses similar to a recycling program at his high school.
Leary said out of 47 Greek houses, 38 have Coke or Pepsi machines, which distribute about 3,000 cans per month. These, along with beer cans from Greek members and parties create a vast potential for recycling.
"I had the idea when I was a second year," he said. "I wanted to start the recycling program, but I didn't have the money."
A local Coca-Cola distributor solved Leary's funding problem by donating 50 55-gallon barrels to use as recycling bins. Leary found further support through the University recycling center, which agreed to loan Leary a vehicle on the weekends to haul the cans to Coiner's Scrap Metal Yard.
"The U.Va. recycling center was able to loan them a truck and trash bags to help get them started," Clark said.
After discussing his idea for the program with fraternity presidents, Leary said he had to make sure that Greeks were aware of the recycling program -- using word of mouth to help the program get on its feet.
"A lot of people would see us and hear us rattling cans every weekend when we would pick up the cans to take them to the recycling center," he said.
Last year's program, which ran from October through April, resulted in 1,382 pounds of aluminum cans, which earned $494.26 for Habitat for Humanity. The program recycled roughly 49,000 cans.
While some fraternity and sorority members occasionally have forgotten to recycle cans, Leary said no recycling program achieves 100 percent success.
"No program actually comes close to 50 percent," he said. "Most hover around 30 percent of all cans in the system being recycled.
"There was nothing in place before this recycling program, so if we manage to get a few cans out of the landfill, then we'll be doing better than before," he added.
Program Co-Director Pierce Louis, a St. Anthony's Hall fraternity member and third-year College student, said some fraternities and sororities were better about recycling than others.
"Some of the fraternities just threw their barrels in trees," Louis said. "The girls are definitely neater about it. Many of them actually wash their cans out.
"The guys seem to throw anything in the barrels, especially bottles," he said. "Some of the guys who do that might not know the barrels are only for cans. Others might just be drunk."
Recycling program volunteers from the Greek system are responsible for rummaging through the barrels on weekends to pull bottles and any other materials other than cans out of the recycling bins. These volunteers also help collect bins from each house, take the bins to the recycling center and wash them out. Program directors coordinate volunteers and make sure these tasks are completed.
This year, barrels were distributed in early September and the program will run until the end of the school year.
Louis said he hopes with this year's longer program, Greeks will recycle more cans.
"We're starting early, and we definitely hope to improve over last year's totals. I'd say we're hoping for [$1,000] this year," he said.
Leary and program Co-Directors Louis and Tommy Sweets said they hope to formalize procedures this year. Last year, most of the work was completed by a handful of volunteers. This year, they said they are hoping to get each fraternity and sorority to pick up the cans from each house and take them to the recycling center on an assigned weekend.
"There were weeks when we couldn't get out to collect the cans. Hopefully, we can become a little more efficient this year," Leary said.
In the future, Leary said he would like to see the program expand to include recycling paper. And he said he hopes that fraternity members one day might pour beer from kegs into corn starch cups, which are biodegradable, rather than non-biodegradable plastic cups.
"We want to take manageable steps and avoid getting overly ambitious," Leary said. "Right now raising consciousness and getting people to think a little more about recycling is just as important as the amount of money we end up donating to Habitat for Humanity."
Clark said there are many other actions fraternities and sororities can take to boost their recycling efforts. Instead of buying kegs of beer, fraternities and sororities could buy cans of beer, he said. This would reduce the need for plastic cups.
If fraternities and sororities insist on using plastic cups, he said, they could limit each person to one cup to reduce trash.
"The University is the only entity in the region able to recycle certain plastics, the colored stuff like the plastic shampoo bottles are made from," he added. "Fraternities and sororities could even order cups made from this material and put their logos on the cups. Then, they could recycle the cups."
With the cost of hauling trash to the nearest landfill and landfill fees, recycling will indirectly save fraternities and sororities money. Clark said the University pays about $70-$75 for each ton of trash, a fee which includes both hauling costs and landfill fees. The University generates 10,000 tons of trash per year.
Leary agreed and said recycling might soon save sororities and fraternities money, since the Greek system's trash contractors charge more if the house fills more than 24 bags of trash in a week. Recycling gets rid of cans that take up space in the regular trash.
"It makes sense and cents to recycle for the University and for fraternities," Clark said. "For the University, the more we recycle, the more money we save. The more money we save, the more money can be given to different departments, like housing.
"Maybe housing would have money for more renovations if we recycled more," he added.
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