"It's different here in the awareness among young people because they seem just not to know," Lagida-Ostling said. "I imagine there's tons of people like that."

She lives just north of Central Michigan University's campus, from where her husband and professor of philosophy, Michael Ostling, can walk to campus. She said she enjoys living around students, but that it breaks her heart to see most of them throwing their recyclables away.

Many of Mount Pleasant's student residents live in multi-family apartment complexes and do not have the curbside recycling option that their peers who live in rental houses do.

Amy Shindorf, resource recovery director at the Isabella County Recycling Center, said many of these residences are in Union Township, where work to provide more recycling service is ongoing.

"I would agree that students deserve more options and more convenience like curbside programs," she said. "I've seen a trend since I've been here just under ten years from where students are interested in recycling to where students are making the efforts to recycle."

But there are still consequences to the fact that no multi-family facilities provide students the chance to recycle, Shindorf said, and some of those students don't make the trip to the county center, or even to CMU's campus, to dispose of their recyclable material.

"I don't know how this can be addressed. I think it would be best if it was through the university," Dorota Lagida-Ostling said. "I wrote a letter to the dean of students. He wrote right back and he seemed interested, but it was just one e-mail."

The one e-mail then continued on through a chain of university and city officials.

Dean of Students Bruce Roscoe said he did receive the letter and forwarded the message to Director of Student Life Tony Voisin, who is also on a liaison committee with the city.

Voisin said he passed it on to a city committee member because "the university obviously does what it can with sustainability on campus."

He sent the message to Minor Shattuck, city building inspector.

"What happened there is a property owner, they do have the right to get recycling, but they just don't do that," Shattuck said. "I didn't do a lot. I did take the complaint and forwarded it on."

DPW director Duane Ellis said he didn't recall receiving Dorota Lagida-Ostling's complaint.

"Curbside recycling for apartment complexes is difficult because of the nature," he said. "It's really up to the property owner if they want to provide that service to the residents or not."

Rachel Maurer has lived at Campus Habitat, 712 Edgewood Drive, the entire academic year and said she would recycle if her complex provided its tenants with the service.

While Maurer was not aware a recycling center existed in Isabella County, she said that it might be time consuming for students to take their reusable materials to the center.

"I don't think students should expect the convenience of recycling to come in the (time) during their years here," Shindorf said. "(But) I have found interest in multi-family residence programs from the facility owner and people in the municipality."

She said she occasionally sees a solution on the horizon, as she works with area property owners. The issue is on the forefront of her mind, but for now students will have to make the drive to help keep their community clean.

metro@cm-life.com