By Randa Anthony
Blue recycling bins can typically be seen all over campus with paper spilling onto the floor. Where does all of that paper come from and where does it go?
Anything that the faculty and staff wants recycled gets thrown in the blue bins and anything confidential with social security numbers, addresses, telephone numbers, and grades is to be shredded, according to Sandy Kosciewicz, who is in charge of the student workers who collect the paper.
She also said that anything that comes from the Business Office, Records and Admissions, and the Counseling Center is to be shredded by paper shredders located within those departments.
Kosciewicz said, "I have no control about what people throw in there. The biggest majority of anything confidential gets shredded."
She continued, "Special documents are hand separated by students or whoever is working."
Physical plant student workers then take the paper to large dumpster-sized bins behind the D building on campus for removal from the premises by a private company, Waste Management of Illinois Valley.
Dr. Rose Marie Lynch, an English instructor, has an office window that overlooks these large bins and found what she saw surprising.
Lynch said, "I was one of two instructors who watched two young men, obviously student workers, dig through and read recycled papers."
Linda Hawkins, division secretary in the Counseling Center said, "We don’t recycle sensitive materials so someone else doesn’t see things that they shouldn’t. Everything we have in here is confidential." Hawkins continued, "Students should not see any other students’ information."
Student worker, Mandi Willmer, who works in Records and Admissions said, "I personally don’t pay any attention to the confidential stuff. I just do what I have to with it."
Willmer continued, "I know that some people, if they had the opportunity, would look at it. I wouldn’t want my confidential stuff to go through recycling so that people could read or distribute that information."
Connie Skerston, records analyst in Records and Admissions said, "We shred all documents, We don’t keep anything once we’re done with it. Things like schedules, transcripts, and class lists and green-bar reports of enrollment statistics that come through the printer are all shredded."
Lynch said, "I saw one young man, standing in the back of a pickup full of papers, unfold a big tractor-feed computer printout—what we refer to as a green bar—and spend some time looking at it. I watched for ten or fifteen minutes."
Physical Plant Manager, Gary Johnson said, "They have to pick it out with their hands so they kind of have to look at it." He added, "These are good kids. I don’t think they mean to harm anybody by it."
Lynch said regarding the view from her window, "They were not grabbing large stacks of papers and throwing them in the recycling bin. They were shuffling through the papers, holding some up and reading them.
"I saw one of the guys pick up something that looked like a magazine and throw it through the open window of the truck onto the seat—not into the recycling bin."