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• Frequently Asked Questions

• Pick Up Schedule (PDF)

• Recyclable Materials

• RecycleMania

The Southern Mississippi recycling program is universal, comprehensive, single-stream, and desk side.  It includes 4,500 seven-gallon cans across campus in every office, classroom, and residence hall room.  In these blue bins faculty, staff, and students can place all allowable recycling materials where they will be retrieved by custodial and sustainability staff.   To see a compilation of what can and cannot be recycled in the Southern Miss recycling program please click here.

The recycling program here at the University of Southern Mississippi is comprised of four key aspects.

1. Universal – the program is everywhere on campus in that a small seven-gallon can has been placed in every single office, classroom, and residence hall room on campus.
2. Comprehensive – It includes everything but glass.
3. Single-Stream – everything that is recyclable goes into one container, therefore, the participant is not asked to sort any of the materials.
4. Deskside – the recycling cans will be picked up by custodial staff allowing consumers to participate freely and easily without having to leave their immediate environment.

• Seven-gallon cans are located in all residence hall rooms. This can belongs to the room and each resident will be responsible for ensuring that the can remains at the end of the year.
• These seven-gallon cans will be emptied by the residents into the larger can that are in each building, usually in the first floor lobby.
• Once the full bag has been placed in the proper larger container, the resident should retrieve a new liner from the desk assistant.
• The recycling program operator, will pick up the materials from the large building cans and take them to the collection site.

• Seven gallon cans are located in each classroom, office, and conference room.
• These seven-gallon cans will be emptied by the custodial staff into the larger cans that each building contains.
• The recycling program operator will pick up the materials from the large building cans and take them to the collection

Help Us make it Successful!
As with any operation of this magnitude, attention to detail is crucial.  The following are helpful tasks that will assist the Southern Miss Recycling
 
1.    Please break down all boxes and place behind the larger building cans.  Our day to day operations, in the past, have been slowed down greatly by the process of breaking down boxes.  We ask the campus community to discard any styrofoam and place flattened boxes behind the large building cans.
 
2.     Know Your Pick-Up Schedule.  On our website, there is a pick-up schedule that puts every building on campus into a zone.  Each zone is affiliated with specific pick-up days.  At our private residences, if our trash pick-up is on a Thursday morning, we typically would not place our trash bins out until Wednesday evening.  The same should be true for recycling here on campus.  The zones and schedule can be found at: http://www.usm.edu/green/pickup_sched.pdf
 
3.    Don’t Pile It Up! All seven-gallon cans should be emptied by custodial on a daily basis. This constant flow of recycling should alleviate any need to accumulate large amounts of recycling at any given time.  The goal is to create a synergistic flow between the campus community and the recycling operation. Allowing the system to work as designed will do just that.
 
4.    Shredding.  All materials collected by recycling are destroyed.  This includes all documents.  If a department has HIGHLY sensitive documents (i.e. FERPA, HIPPA, etc) they should be shredded either by the department using a shredder or by hiring a shredding company (most use Shred-It).  The vast majority of documents can enter the recycling stream securely and be destroyed by our service provider. 

The “BIG FIVE”
Most Important Details to Remember About Recycling at Southern Miss

1. Know accepted materials and your buildings pick-up schedule – we take anything other than styrofoam, glass, or food! http://www.usm.edu/green/pickup_sched.pdf

2. The system is “desk-side” – custodians retrieve and enter materials into recycling stream via large building cans http://www.usm.edu/green/recycling.ph

3. BREAKDOWN BOXES before letting them leave your office (PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE) – cut the tape and FLATTEN

4. Don’t pile-up materials. Get rid of stuff daily.

5. Shredding is the responsibility your department – some do it themselves while others hire a company such as Shred-it. 

For more information on the pick-up zones and days please click here.