The orange bins are gone.

All in an attempt to save $4,596, a measly $0.75 per student.

Back in 2014, campus officials began their efforts to increase the amount of recycling being done, putting orange recycling bins around campus including near Clark Student Center to McCullough-Trigg and Dillard College of Business.

In 2018, university administrators allocated $384,889 for facility management, including recycling. In 2019, that budget line was cut to $200,802, a decrease of about 50 percent.

Kyle Owen, associate vice president of facilities services, said, “I was going to ask the city for help, but their offer was twice the price than the amount we were paying before.”

After stopping business with the company Waste Connections, there was no one to pick up the recycle.

“We just don’t have enough in the budget in the department to continue the recycling services,” Owen said.

Waste Connections has canceled its commercial recycling procedures not just at the university, but in all of the Texoma region. University officials worked with Waste Connections, a premier provider of solid waste collection, transfer, recycling and disposal service.

“When it came down to the budget, discontinuing recycling on campus was the only thing that made the most economical sense,” Owen said.

The last time the university had paid for recycling and waste removal was Oct. 1. The total value of the contract with Waste Connections of Texas was $4,596.

Lupe DeLeon, custodian, said, “The university wanted to cut out things to save as much money. That’s why I think that they [Midwestern State] has gotten rid of the orange recycling bins because it was too expensive for the recycling services.”

Now there is no convenient way to recycle materials such as plastic, paper, glass, and metal for students or faculty on campus. Not only were the students are affected by the changes, staff members are as well.

Christie Maturo, an assistant professor of theater, said, “I went out to throw out my recycling and noticed that the orange bins weren’t in the spots around campus. I can’t see as a college student living in a dorm, it would be hard to recycle all their trash on their own. I would think that as a college we should be establishing good responsibilities for students.”