STEM Café — Trash Talk: Rethinking Recycling

If you put a used plastic bottle, food carton or cereal box in your recycling bin, what happens to it? You might be surprised to hear that many of the recyclable products we use actually end up in incinerators or landfills, instead of being recycled. As international recycling markets break down and environmental crises overwhelm us, how can we rethink recycling, reducing and reusing?

Courtney Gallaher, associate professor in the NIU Department of Geographic and Atmospheric Sciences and the Center for the Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality, will lead us in a lively discussion about the ways in which we consume products, types of materials they are made from, and the environmental and social justice implications of our recycling industry.

Professor Gallaher will be joined by Meghann Maves, total recycling program manager at Waste Management Recycling Services, who will describe the recycling process and share examples of what happens when we don’t prepare our recyclable items properly.

For more details and free registration, please see here.