A stream of light pours from the flashlight, surveying the open space of the Daniels College of Business lounge. The beam scans over the ground, chairs and tables until it finds its target: the garbage can. The garbage bag is lifted from the bin and dumped on the floor of the parking garage. Gloved hands sort through the trash, vigilantly separating the paper, glass and plastic products from the food remnants and potato chip bags that make up the pile of trash.

Last April, garbage cans at DCB and nine other buildings on campus were overturned and sorted through by students seeking to show university administration the deteriorating state of recycling on the DU campus. The demonstration by members of Sustainable DU showed a significant portion of the waste produced on campus to be recyclable.

“At least 50 percent could have been recycled,” said Charlie Coggeshall, an MBA student at DU.

Coggeshall, along with his colleague Jeff Malcolm, were part of the group that sorted through the garbage cans at night. This dirty job was the first step towards the creation of a recycling plan that will run for a trial period of six months at DCB.

Coggeshall, who has been at DU working towards his MBA for two years, completed his undergrad at the University of Vermont, a school that ranks among the top six national schools for green practices and policies. When Coggeshall came to DU, he was shocked.

“It was pathetic,” said Coggeshall, “Just really bad.”

Coggeshall took note of the absence of recycling bins and interpreted it to mean that DU did not care about the environment.

Coggeshall started collecting the names of heads of environmental organizations on campus. He found a link with the graduate student organization, Net Impact, which put him in the perfect position to strike up a deal with the administration of DCB. Net Impact is a non-profit organization that targets business students to be the future leaders of creating a more sustainable society.

Coggeshall and Malcolm headed the researching and writing of a recycling plan proposal for DCB, which they presented to Alfredo Abad, the head of Facilities management. Coggeshall and Malcolm wanted DU to be on a single-stream as well, which meant seeking out a new contractor and establishing a relationship with custodial services on campus. After numerous conversations and meetings with Abad, Coggeshall and Malcolm established a trial contract with Alpine Waste Management; a recycling and waste processing plant. Alpine does not recycle for all of campus, right now, only DCB. Now the only hurdle to overcome would be getting custodial services to purchase bins and take on the extra work-load of picking up recycling at DCB.

Abad agreed to supplying recycling bins- 195 bins in total – if Coggeshall and Malcolm would provide the labor of picking up bins and bringing them to P2 of the DCB parking garage three days a week. After gathering troops of supporters who were willing to aid them in emptying the recycling bins at 7 a.m. three days a week, the finishing touches of the plan were completed.

When they presented this proposal to the administration of DCB, they met little objection.

“It is hard to find someone who is against the environment,” said Malcolm, “and the Dean was just awesome about it.”

Bruce Hutton, the interim Dean of DCB was one of the founders of the Net Impact chapter in Denver and is an avid supporter of the environmental efforts on campus.

Coggeshall is certain that the recycling program will be successful in cutting the amount of garbage produced at DCB in half. He sees this as being an overall economic gain for the university, who will no longer pay to have their waste put in a landfill. In addition, the plan will improve students’ perception of the university’s attitude toward the environment. If this plan fulfills the benefits Coggeshall foresees, the university will take over implementing similar systems in all other buildings on campus.

“They have really put a lot of work into this,” said Abad.