Recycling in our faculty!

Currently all of the solid residual generated by the Industrial Engineering School, excepting papers (which are being collected by the library), are disposed in containers which are later moved to the community scrapyard.

Recycling is a very beneficial practice, as it allows us to save energy and natural resources, reducing pollution and volumes of waste. For instance, plastic, whose degradation is very slow, can be recycled, saving oil and energy and diminishing water pollution by not using the chemicals required to produce new plastic.

A project led by a group of students of MGPG and the Industrial Engineering Student centre is about to start. On Monday September 22nd, enthusiastic approval from our authorities was given. The goal is “To increase the environmental awareness of the Industrial Engineering School's students, academics and staff through the implementation of an integral recycling program on solid residual”.

We are currently in the tactic feasibility stage, coordinating the process, getting residual containers and designing our educational campaign.

¿How will it work?

Within the school, containers will be located for the disposal of solid, non-organic residuals such as glass bottles, plastic bottles and cups, cans, plastic bags and non-white paper.

The company “Banco Ambiental” will be in charge of taking those residuals, classifying and compressing them in order to return to both the national and international markets (specially Asia).

We also visited the scrapyard and talked with its supervisor, who explained us his business model, successfully operating for more than 20 years. Currently, a testing program for domestic residual is being carried out.

Finally we leave an open invitation to be a part of this initiative and help us to increase environmental awareness. To illustrate the importance of this, some estimations:

• A person produces a daily average of 1,5 kg of trash
  
• A family produces a yearly average of 2,5 tons of trash
• Recycling a glass bottle can save the energy required to power a bulb for 4 hours
• Recycling an aluminium can save the energy required to power a television for 3 hours