YSU Professor supports pop-can deposit

YSU has the third-highest percentage of recycled materials among Northeast Ohio colleges.
By JoANNE VIVIANO
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- As Youngstown State University biology professor Tom Diggins held up his Diet Coke can, he told students: "This is not just a beverage container, it's not just a drink.
"It's my prop."
The professor took his last sip from the can as he explained how people won't likely pick up pop cans dropped in a garbage can or tossed out car windows.
They might, however, retrieve nickels if the coins were scattered on the ground.
As Diggins spoke Friday at a YSU America Recycles Day press conference outside Kilcawley Center, he urged legislators to create a law that requires a deposit on pop cans, as 11 other states do.
"Eleven states are looking to the future, ... 39 are still in the past," Diggins said. "Let's make Ohio the 12th state to look to the future."
Diggins was one of several university representatives, students and elected officials to speak during the event.
YSU also is the only school in Ohio with a "re:Create" program, said Jim Petuch, the university's recycling manager. The program collects reusable items such as art, craft materials and furniture and redistributes them to nonprofit organizations.
YSU and the surrounding community have diverted 13,000 pounds of nonrecyclable items through the program, Petuch said, including 8 tons of computers and computer components. A semitruck full of nonrecyclables was collected from students after a three-day move-out last spring. All were donated to charity.
Recognition
The unique program, Petuch said, has gained interest from other universities, including Harvard.
In other campus programs, the university's goal is to recycle 210 pounds of items by year's end. Since January, the amount recycled is 183 pounds.
The amount puts the university's percentage third among Northeast Ohio universities.
"I'm still going after Miami University and Ohio University," Petuch said. " ... Four years from now .... we will be No. 1 in Ohio."
After his statements, Petuch passed out green piggy banks -- made from recycled currency -- to students.
The event was co-sponsored by YSU Student Government and the Youngstown Environmental Studies Society.
Christa Natoli, a YSU Student Government member who emceed the event, stressed the importance of preserving landfill space, saying nearly half of the out-of-state waste coming into Ohio lands in the Mahoning Valley.
"We're going to become the dumping ground for out-of-state waste if we don't do something about it," added state Rep. John Boccieri of New Middletown, D-57th, who said Ohio will run out of landfill space in 10 years.
Along with the press conference, tables were set up inside Kilcawley Center by various agencies, including the Youngstown State Environmental & amp; Animal Rights Coalition, Youngstown Litter Control & amp; Recycling, Vegetarians of the Greater Youngstown Area and the Mahoning Soils & amp; Water Conservation District.