Good habits may be hard to establish, but a simple habit to form at UTM is recycling.
The university’s Recycling Center is open daily and accepts aluminum cans, glass bottles of any color, paper, cardboard, steel cans (washed) and other scrap metal, ink cartridges, No. 1 and No. 2 plastics, and all electronics (except TVs) free of charge. TVs cost $8 each to recycle because that’s what it costs the Center to send them off, said Mike Davis Jr., Center coordinator.
“We want students and the community to know that recycling is important and easy to do here,” Davis said.
The No. 1 and No. 2 plastics, he said, include all types of plastic drink bottles, milk jugs, liquid laundry detergent jugs, etc., as well as some cellophanes and clean bags from area stores.
To know what grade plastic an item is, find its recycling symbol – often on the bottom of the container – and see what number is inside the symbol.
Any plastics with a recycling grade number of three or higher cannot currently be accepted, Davis said, because UTM’s vendor in Yorkville, Tennessee, won’t accept the higher-grade plastics until a market exists for them. Davis said he periodically checks with the vendor to see if the situation has changed.
Meanwhile, he said, groups interested in finding a way to recycle the higher-grade plastics could check with RockTenn in Memphis or Nashville (www.rocktenn.com) or with other recycling centers in metropolitan areas.
For hazardous waste recycling, which includes paint cans, aerosol cans and other containers of chemicals, the Recycling Center helps sponsor two events per year for the community to safely dispose of toxic materials, Davis said.
Other recyclables, such as clothing, can be taken to We Care Ministries in Martin or other area charitable groups. We Care also needs plastic bags.
The Center, at 105 Moody St., is open from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. For more information, call 731-881-7640.
