NIU students are following a national trend of protecting the environment by recycling more garbage.

Dave Broustis, Student Association Recycling Center director, said student involvement has been tremendous. “Since Monday people have been calling all day asking where they can drop their garbage off.”

The recycling center, located just west of Stevenson Towers South, accepts newspapers, glass bottles, aluminum cans, plastic milk jugs and computer paper, and is open 24 hours.

The center, run by Broustis and seven other students, makes nearly $12,000 annually by selling the recycleables to processing plants, but costs about $20,000 to run.

Broustis said NIU would save $40,000 every year by recycling cardboard. “They spend $200,000 on landfill space and cardboard makes up about 20 percent of the waste on campus.

Although DeKalb’s curbside recycling program has taken away some of the center’s business, the overwhelming response by students this fall will more than make up for it, Broustis said.

Since the student response has been so great, Broustis said he wants to make the recycling program more convenient. “We need more aluminum can bins in the dorms and wherever there are two pop machines,” he said. There are already bins for computer paper in every lab on campus.

Dave added that glass and aluminum are especially useful waste products because they can be made into new containers, where plastic cannot. New uses for recycled plastics range from fence posts to license plate holders.

Students willing to help the program can volunteer at the Recycling Center on Saturdays between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m.