UWM’s Office of Sustainability has launched a program that focuses on gathering plastic film materials, such as grocery bags and Amazon mailers, and taking them to be recycled and repurposed into new, usable materials. The benefits are two-fold: keeping over 10,000 pounds of plastic out of landfills each year and providing an economic benefit to the university.
Ben Konitzer, recycling and solid waste specialist at UWM, brought this initiative to life when waste disposal companies began adding fees to sort plastic film from other trash. Konitzer found a crossroads where the university can be spared hundreds of dollars in extra costs and the UWM community can come together to protect the environment.
“This is an economic benefit for UWM,” Konitzer said. “Every bale that we make of plastic film saves campus about $500 through avoided costs and earned revenue. Avoided costs are how much we would have spent to send the plastic to the landfill — which gets expensive. And earned revenue is how much we get paid for sending this material to a specialty recycler.”