Trash, recycling issues at student housing complexes in State College aren’t uncommon. Why?
As more luxury student housing complexes come on line in the Centre Region, trash issues have become an unexpected problem on some properties.
One property that has had ongoing trash issues is The Yards at Old State, 1830 Blue Course Drive, State College. Though officials have seen improvement in recent weeks, trash had been scattered across the property and blowing in the wind, and bags of garbage were piling up on residents’ porches last month, prompting complaints from area residents and catching the attention of elected officials.
Ferguson Township Supervisor Jeremie Thompson on Twitter said he was “appalled by the filth and negligence” he saw at the property.
“It’s unacceptable to charge our residents thousands of dollars for the basic right to shelter and fail to provide adequate refuse service and a litter free landscape,” he tweeted.
A few days later, he tweeted that there was a cleanup underway and regional partners have provided actions and suggestions so it doesn’t happen again in the future. They’ll also be regularly visiting the site, he said.
A “notice of violation” was issued to The Yards and the corporate owner on Feb. 14, giving them 30 days to remedy the violations, according to the Centre Regional Planning Agency.
Kelly Williams, portfolio manager for Cardinal Group Management, responded to a request for comment from The Yards’ management.
“Cardinal Management is fully cooperating with local authorities and is taking steps to support trash mitigation within The Yards at Old State community,” Williams wrote in an email.
‘A lot of working pieces’
Ed Hicks, commercial recycling coordinator for the Centre County Recycling and Refuse Authority, said recycling at student housing in general can be “challenging,” especially because CCRRA is source separated, rather than a single-stream facility. Source separated means customers sort their own recyclables, whereas single-stream means all recyclables are put into the same container at the curb, the container is tipped into the truck and then separated at the processing facility.
“This one (The Yards at Old State) is even more difficult, given that they have a third-party concierge service come around and collect the trash from the doorsteps, and they expect their tenants to recycle but they don’t provide that service,” Hicks said. “Their tenants have to go to a specific area where we have the recycling, and there’s some miscommunication or lack of communication at times, so that kind of is what got us to where we are.”
For that particular property, Hicks said CCRRA is a sub-contractor to the trash hauler, Waste Management. Waste Management collects the compactors and CCRRA does the recycling.
Currently, The Yards has two compactor areas but only one recycling area, which is part of the problem. The other recycling area is built, but Hicks said CCRRA hasn’t been authorized to deliver the containers. Somewhere in the middle of this is a valet trash service, which is subcontracted out, as well.
“There’s just a lot of working pieces and whenever one piece doesn’t work well, the whole thing falls apart and that’s what happened there,” Hicks said.
There’s little signage at the compactor area so it’s difficult for people to know what to do with it, Hicks said, and trash was piling up. Because of how the compactor is set up, someone would have to walk around behind the enclosure and go up some steps to throw the trash in. Off to the side is the recycling room. He thought that perhaps the residents didn’t know how to get in it and were just filling the recycling room with trash, which expanded out into the parking lot.
“Then you add to the fact that they’re over there on the outskirts of town so to speak, where you have lots of critters running around, digging into trash, and crows and things of that nature, too. That didn’t help any. And it’s windy over there because they are on the outside,” Hicks said. “That was like the worst case of everything coming together.”
Potential solutions
As more larger, student housing complexes are built in the area, they’re learning on how to improve. Education is a big part of the issue, Hicks said, and something CCRRA is willing to provide.
If property owners want education materials, CCRRA can provide that. Part of Hicks’ job is doing waste assessments, so if businesses want to see their recycling improve, he can walk through the facility with the owner and make recommendations on how to increase recycling and decrease trash.
Another aspect that Hicks would like to see changed in the future is involving CCRRA more in reviewing site plans, so that they don’t end up with a system that might not work as well as planned.
Hicks previously worked for the State College borough, running the refuse, recycling and composting program. There, when a new building or housing complex was being built, a representative from the sanitation department would be included in the conversation with the engineering department, to ensure what was being built would suffice the sanitation need.
“We’re lacking that in the municipalities. Sometimes we’re allowed to look at the plans and make recommendations but what we recommend and what actually in the end gets built, sometimes change,” he said.
Some of the high-rises have two chutes, one for trash and one for recycling. But the recycling chute isn’t used because the recycling needs to be separated. There are bins placed outside for recycling, but most of it will just go down the trash chute.
Not all student housing complexes are problematic, Hicks said. He pointed to The Retreat, 300 Waupelani Drive, State College, as an example of a property that has a system the works well. They also have a third-party trash concierge service, but they have red, curbside recycling bins for their residents. All the residents have to do is set the bins outside on collection day.
