??Campus Folk: Treasure in the trash bins

By by Farrah Madanay     1/31/12 6:00pm

Rice University's three-mile "Outer Loop" hosts a multitude of active Houstonians every day. Some people run, some bike, and some walk and talk with friends. Yvonne Jacobs recycles. Ever since moving to Texas from California about 40 years ago, Jacobs has become an ever-visible character on the Outer Loop. Though her name may not ring a bell, she is instantly recognizable by the vest she wears, which reads, "Recycle good, Reuse better, Reduce best, 350.org."

"I wanted to include something educational, so I put 350.org," Jacobs said. 350.org is a grassroots movement focused on returning the carbon-dioxide levels of Earth's atmosphere from 392 parts per million back to 350 ppm.

Jacobs, a retired schoolteacher, walks every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday morning from her home in West University to the Outer Loop. After jogging around the Loop once she circles again, scouring the trash bins for recyclables. By the time she walks back home, she has been gone three hours, one-and-a-half to two of which were solely dedicated to recycling.

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Jacobs did not always engage in what she terms her radical recycling procedure. What began as casual recycling turned into a cathartic compulsion eight years ago when Jacobs escalated her visibility by donning her homemade vest.

"I used to be self-conscious about it, but I have to do this. I have to make a statement," Jacobs said.

The responses to her morning recycling ritual have been varied, from appreciative thank-yous to caustic questions asking what medication she's on.

"You do have to be a little bit thick-skinned," Jacobs said.

Jacobs uses plastic bags she finds in the trash cans to collect the recyclables. Unafraid of germs, she fishes bare-handed through the trash cans at the bus stops along both the Inner Loop and the Outer Loop.

At a bus stop in West Lot 4, she propped her sunglasses below her nose to better see the depths of a trash can. She pulled out an empty glass bottle, a Chipotle aluminum salad container, paper bags and water bottles.

"Water bottles are a plague," Jacobs said, while pulling a piece of dried gum off a water bottle before placing it in her bag. Jacobs commended Rice for recently installing the water fountain station in the Rice Memorial Center to help reduce the waste of plastic water bottles.

Jacobs, who used to have to lug her bags of recyclables back home, especially appreciated the addition of the two single-stream waste management dumpsters around Rice's campus. She pointed out that she still has to take the glass containers back home to recycle separately, though.

Recyclable containers are not the only objects Jacobs looks for. Some of her "all-time master finds" include boxes of books, $200, 1,500 rupees, Nalgene bottles, plastic servery cups and party dresses. Jacobs manages to recycle even these odd finds back into the community. Jacobs said she washes the clothes and gives them to the charity-based resale shop, The Guild Shop. She also sold the books to Half Price Books for $27 and donated that money along with the rest of her monetary finds to an orphanage. As for the servery cups, when she collects a sufficient amount, she brings them to Brown College Commons. Last Sunday, her abnormal find was a Chase debit card, which she intended to deliver to Chase bank after she finished recycling.

Jacobs, who will not even keep the money for herself, seems completely altruistic, dedicating three hours a day, four days a week, to recycling around Rice. Jacobs, however, doesn't see it that way.

"It's very good for my mental health and my personal satisfaction," she said. "Just doing it is its own reward."

 

Campus Folk tells the often-unknown stories of some of Rice's most intriguing people. To suggest email Farrah at flm1@ rice.edu.

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