Faculty will learn the art of trash management
The UI will soon have a new trash-management system in its academic buildings: Faculty members will have to centralize their garbage disposing, and custodial staff will empty central bins once a month.
The change comes in response to the promotion of a more sustainable campus and to recent budget cuts, said Dan Heater, the director of building and landscape services at UI Facilities Management.
Heater is in the progress of implementing a new trash-management system, which generally aims to reduce waste across campus and is expected to be completed by the end of this year.
Faculty members will receive a recycling bin in their offices where they can discard items. They will be asked to drop their full trash and recycling bins in central collection bins located in every building.
“Because trash will be picked up less often, faculty are more likely to recycle in order for their trash bins to stay empty, longer,” Heater said.
The custodial staff will begin to collect from those bins once per month, as opposed to current practice of picking it up twice per month.
Through all the components of the new management system, custodial positions could potentially be eliminated. However, Heater said a natural attrition is more likely to happen than actual layoffs.
That means some positions will essentially be phased out over time, Heater said.
One way Heater is hoping this attrition will take place is through the UI early retirement program, in which workers 57 years or older can have five years of paid medical and retirement benefits. Then the position will simply not be refilled.
Around 35 positions could be in jeopardy, Heater said.
This is due to an overall decrease in base funding as well as a potential loss of federal stimulus money.
At $30 million total, the base fund dropped 3.2 percent from last year, Heater said, and is expected to dip another 4 percent by next year.
That money comes from the General Education Fund, with tuition and state money each covering half.
Between 80 and 85 percent of the money pays salaries for 600 employees, 232 of whom belonging to the custodial staff.
In preparation, Heater said he has spoken to the deans of every college at the UI, as well as all building coordinators. They were generally enthusiastic, he added.
William Hunter, dean of the Tippie College of Business, said faculty and staff have responded positively to the new trash management system.
“Our students are committed to our recycling and sustainability efforts and to other socially responsible activities,” Hunter wrote in an e-mail. “Recycling waste in the College is taken very seriously and is a responsibility assigned to each faculty and staff member.”
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