Recycling at UIUC

From GSLISWiki

As you may have noticed, we have recycling bins all over UIUC. The story behind what happens to what goes in these cans is, well, judge for yourself...

Note: this story is a rumor, but it has been confirmed by at least 3 different people who have independantly heard it from university maintenance employees from 3 different parts of campus.

Apparently, all the stuff that gets dumped in Recycling Bins at UIUC, whether on-campus or in the dorms, is tossed in the dumpster with the rest of the trash. When the dumpster is taken away, the trash is brought to a building somewhere on or near campus, where mentally challenged students are put in charge of sorting through all the trash, as part of a "job skills training" program. It is their job to sort the trash into piles of what can be recycled, and what cannot.

Why this has been done, I'm not sure. However, the most recent explanation I have heard is that the State of Illinois passed a law that requires every buisiness or institution in the state to increase the amount of trash that is recycled by a certain percentage, but because the university was already doing such a good job recycling, they had to start sorting through trash in order to get enough material sent to recyclers.