Written by Samantha Holschbach
Greg Tatera, Aramark’s director of building services, does not need many motives to be green — a big one looms on the eastern horizon of his morning commute.
“When you go to Jacksonville, you see the big mountain [of trash] there,” Tatera said, referring to Two Pine Landfill east of I-67, which contains the majority of central Arkansas’ waste. “Because I live in Little Rock, I’ve commuted that route and I’ve watched that mountain for the last 10 years, every single day, coming and going. I’ve seen that trash. And I’ve watched that mountain grow.”
Tatera recalls when the landfill’s location was occupied with a meager bean field in the mid-1970s. Now that Two Pine Landfill is at capacity, a second landfill area has been designated to hold the region’s trash for the next 40 years. Constantly reminded of the mountain’s presence, Tatera has helped catalyze Harding’s burgeoning environmental movement, serving as the mastermind behind the university’s young recycling program.
“In the year and a half that the program’s been up, we’ve gone from zero to a point where we’re not talking in hundreds of pounds of trash — we’re talking in thousands of pounds and tons,” Tatera said of the recycling program’s expansion. “That’s a huge thing.”
Tatera started desiring a recycling program for Harding in 2005 after seeing the vast amount of reusable material thrown into the dumpsters.
“When you manage waste management, it just starts affecting you when you see the volume of what we throw away,” Tatera said. “You see things that have another life. It may not be here at Harding. It may be in a local shelter; it may be in a food pantry.”
As such, in 2007 the elements needed to stimulate environmental sustainability on campus merged together. Harding President Dr. David Burks directed Dr. Jim Carr, executive vice president, to organize the Environmental Stewardship Committee, while simultaneously an independent group of students pushed for green action alongside Aramark’s building services department. In spring 2008 Tatera’s recycling program made its debut.
“Once I got the green light, I just kind of ran with it,” Tatera said. “It’s like the snowball going down the hill. Once it started rolling, it just got more powerful and it just got bigger and bigger. Harding is so lucky to have gone this far in the short period of time.”
Since spring 2008, Harding has recycled about 325,630 pounds of material — the equivalent weight of 13 empty school buses — that would have otherwise entered Two Pine Landfill. Since July 2009, Harding has saved $21,600 in waste management costs, a 40.8 percent reduction over last year’s dumping costs. A total of about 844 containers strewn across campus facilitates this steady stream of recyclable materials.
Naturally, the accelerated success of Harding’s recycling efforts, coupled with the sundry activities of the Environmental Stewardship Committee, has attracted media attention, including the Arkansas Times. Tatera has amassed a stack of newspapers highlighting Harding’s green efforts, carefully preserved in a manila folder. Tatera said Aramark has recognized Harding’s recycling program many times within its region encompassing Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas. Most recently, the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality interviewed Harding last year for possible inclusion in an environmental report to Governor Mike Beebe.
“They [Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality] interviewed us last fall amongst some other groups,” Tatera said. “We’re waiting to see if we made it. They did that because Harding was an example of going from basically nothing [recycled] in the short period of time to where we were able to take it. That’s a huge thing, to be highlighted like that.”
While Tatera gladly welcomes recognition, he fosters the recycling program from a deeper standpoint.
“We’re environmental stewards, and that’s all we are,” Tatera said. “We are here but a very short time, by the grace of God, and that human side of us can mess things up pretty good. And I think the Lord has blessed us with the talents and the knowledge to take these resources and know how best to protect them.”
Nevertheless, all too often Tatera said he witnesses the human side that wreaks havoc of the natural world. He said he is disgusted by the environmentally backward habits of some Americans.
“The amount of trash and litter that goes out not only on campus but the city and everywhere you go — you think we’d be beyond that by now,” Tatera said. “I just don’t know where that became acceptable, that you could open up a window and throw something out. And Arkansas is the Natural State!”
Knowing that humans lean towards convenience, Tatera has expanded the coverage of recycling containers on campus precisely to make the process as easy as possible for busy students.
“Why wouldn’t you do the most basic and easiest things we can do to make a difference?” Tatera said. “If I need to be the one pounding the drum and beating the bushes, I’ll do it. I’m not asking everyone to do that. I just want everybody to do their part, and the simplest thing is to take that piece of paper or that cardboard or that piece of plastic or can or bottle and just put it in the right container.”
Tatera said recycling is especially simple to do because one does not have to make a financial or conscious decision to do what’s right for the environment — it’s practically an absentminded action. However, being a devoted environmentalist requires a lifestyle shift towards living and buying responsibly.
“If you don’t like the way something is manufactured or packaged or any aspect of that, speak up,” Tatera said. “If you don’t like getting junk mail, get on the ‘do not send’ list. We’ve got the containers over there [in the mailroom], but why even get to the point where somebody’s shipping it, it’s on a truck or plane or train that’s using fuel to get it here to the mailroom for you to say, ‘I never wanted that,’ and you recycle it.”
Socially responsible actions, too, are intertwined with environmental concepts.
“It’s not just about recycling,” Tatera said. “It’s reduce, reuse and recycle. When you give blood, what are you doing? You’re reusing your blood and giving it to someone else.”
Ultimately, Tatera envisions an eco-ethic permeating the entire Harding family, serving as a shining example for other groups, even churches, to model as they revamp their ways.
“The university could serve as an example to churches because church sustainability and environmental stewardship is not a big movement out there,” Tatera said. “A lot of churches are staying away from it. I think that Harding could kind of clear up some misunderstandings.”
As Tatera works toward a time when the green movement is fully integrated into every Harding student’s life, he constantly devises new ways they can get involved. He and the Environmental Stewardship Committee are building a Web site that will showcase how Harding is pursuing eco-friendly activities and causes, details about recyclable materials on campus and links to related sites. He also endeavors to attain recycling containers appropriate for dorm rooms by this summer. Momentarily, he is pushing for ample Harding participation in RecycleMania, a nationwide competition to reduce waste on campuses between Jan. 17 and March 27. Harding is participating alongside 603 other universities, including eight from Arkansas. Tatera said he hopes RecycleMania will transcend its 10-week competition status for students, becoming a daily lifestyle challenge.
“I want to see RecycleMania every day, all the time,” Tatera said.
An overflowing think tank of fresh, eco-friendly ideas, Tatera has kindled a culture on campus that will increasingly embrace environmentally sustainable ideals. Even if Tatera cannot move mountains, he can certainly reduce them.
