Towards Equitable Recycling: Bridging Gaps in Sustainability
Fall 2023 Writing Finalist
by Chad Hyer, Molecular Biology
I had just made the move of a lifetime. Rural Georgia was a very different place for an eight-year-old accustomed to the urban sprawl of Los Angeles. Despite leaving friends and everything I knew, the future looked bright, and I was excited for my next adventure. Upon arriving in rural Georgia, however, I quickly learned about the different circumstances faced by people living in underserved areas, and this profoundly impacted my trajectory. Life in rural areas is much slower. Slowness has benefits, but access to opportunity, information, and basic services are not quite the same in rural areas. As an eight-year-old, I was unphased by many of these differences. I had my family and the new people I met were nice to me, but I was surprisingly bothered by one simple change: I could no longer recycle. Growing up, I always knew to separate my paper from my food waste, but when my mother told me I had to throw my cardboard cereal box into the trash bin with my banana peel, I was bewildered. I asked “can’t I recycle this” to which she replied “yes, but our town doesn’t have recycling.” The story follows that I dejectedly tossed the cardboard box into the trash and remarked that “I just didn’t feel like myself anymore.” Why an eight-year-old would feel so strongly about recycling, I don’t know, but I still feel the same to this day.
Fast forward 15 years, and now I live in Provo, Utah. Provo is very different from Georgia, but recycling is still a problem. As a student, I am not afforded the same access to services as a long-term resident. I am at the mercy of my landlords or apartment complex owners of whether or not I can recycle, and the vast majority do not consider recycling a priority. This problem has bugged me, and as a result, I have dedicated much of my time at BYU to finding ways to increase people’s access to recycling.
As a student, I started a glass recycling company called Glass Roots Recycling to remedy a lack of access to glass recycling in Provo. I do not currently have the resources to solve general recycling, but I do have the ability to create a sustainable solution for glass recycling, so I have executed on it. In my studies, I have also focused on improving recycling. I study molecular biology. While most people conflate biology and medicine, I have always focused on how I can use my knowledge of biology and chemistry to solve problems regarding sustainability. I aim to pursue a PhD in bioengineering and would like to use my skills to develop new approaches to sustainably produce and recycle materials using molecular machines. Doing so, I hope to generate a generally accessible, equitable, and affordable solution that can bridge gaps in sustainability by allowing anyone, anywhere in the world to recycle, especially in rural areas like where I hailed from.