By Emily Roche
At the end of each semester, students usually sell back their textbooks, throw them out, or donate them to D.I., where they will likely never again be used for a positive purpose.
BYU law students will have a different experience this semester, as 3,000 of their law journals and reference books will become food for a compost grinder. The books will be mixed with grass and wood chips and returned as mulch at the end of fall semester for spreading in flower, shrub and tree beds around BYU campus. This is the first time BYU has used the compost grinder as an alternative to traditional recycling methods.
'All of the books were hard-backed,' said Bill Rudy, a recycling trainer at the University Recycling Center. 'With hard-backed books, the covers must be cut off and separated from the paper inside. This is time consuming, requires machinery that we don''t have and can be dangerous.'
Rudy is confident the compost grinder will be an effective recycling method.
'BYU has one of the best university composting programs in the country,' Rudy said. 'We compost thousands of tons of grass, leaves, wood, pallets, scrap wood and even old play sets each year.'
All of the books the law school sends to the compost grinder are duplicates of law books, reference books and journals that are already available online and in the library''s collection.
'We needed the shelf space for other books,' said Dianne Davenport, an employee of the Howard W. Hunter Law Library. 'There were so many duplicate copies that we wanted to get rid of, so we needed an alternative to traditional recycling.'
Recycling these 3,000 books frees up more than 1,100 feet of shelf space.
The BYU Law Library sold as many books as possible to students for a discounted price of only a dollar or two before sending any books to the recycling center. About 1,000 books were donated to other law libraries and universities in California, Illinois, Ohio, South Carolina and Utah. The remaining 3,000 books, amounting to seven tons of volumes, will be taken to the compost grinder.
'Recycling saves BYU thousands of dollars each year in landfill tipping fees,' Rudy said. 'We also see recycling as a practical application of the idea stated on the Provident Living Web site: ''We should be wise stewards by exercising good judgment in managing and replenishing the resources with which the Lord has blessed us.'''