Recycling is returning to residence halls.

Although details are yet to be worked out, UA Facilities Management ÷ whose recycling office does most of the recycling on campus ÷ will handle the residence halls' recycling, officials decided Friday.

Facilities Management will take the place of the Department of Residence Life, which handled recycling in residence halls until this year.

Details of the recycling set up will be worked out in a meeting between Facilities Management, director of Residence Life Jim Van Arsdel and the Residence Hall Association later this week, Tarcola said.

Recycling in the residence halls will be up and running again as soon as possible, Tarcola said, adding that he did not have an exact date yet.

Van Arsdel and RHA president Michael Miller were unavailable for comment.

The Department of Residence Life, which used to handle residence hall recycling, discontinued the program this year.

With Residence Life's decision to cut recycling, dorm residents have been without the chance to recycle for the last two and a half weeks.

"I think it is great they took the initiative," said Jimmy Gresham, pre-business freshman and resident of Pima Residence Hall. "Someone on the campus should take care of hall recycling and I'm glad they stepped in and took care of it."

With Facilities Management's decision to take over dorm recycling, other entities that were trying to find a replacement, like the Arizona Student Recycling Association, can now focus on other pursuits.

"As long as they have recycling in the residence halls, we don't care who does it," said ASRA president Anneliese Schmidt, an astronomy senior.

But not everyone plans to recycle once residence halls get the service again.

"Overall, recycling does not make money · But money is not an issue. The issue is what's best for the campus. -Al Tarcola director of Facilities Management

"That's great they're doing the recycling but when I was in the residence halls, no one really took the extra steps to recycle; they just tossed it in the trash," said Mariel Cisterino, accounting senior. "I think recycling should be done by the hall governments, because some are very proactive and so if they have a hall government that does a lot, the residents would be more likely to recycle."

The Recycling Office started recycling in 1990 at about the same time the Arizona Recycling Act was signed, requiring UA to recycle office paper. The Recycling Office is not expecting to have its resources stretched too thin. Facilities Management had been talking about reorganizing anyway, Tarcola said.

"Overall, recycling does not make money · But money is not an issue. The issue is what's best for the campus," Tarcola said.

Hall governments began considering starting their own recycling programs, like resident assistants at Kaibab-Huachuca Residence Hall, raising the question of who would be best to provide recycling for dorms last week.

"I think it should be a joint effort," Gresham said. "Students should participate, but I don't think it should be totally up to them."

A program through RHA and one for the Arizona Student Recycling Association, which has been trying to get recycling on nearby East University Boulevard to raise funds for hall recycling, had also been mentioned.

"I guess Facilities Management should (handle residence hall recycling). If they do most of the other recycling, they might as well," said Tara Luckau, molecular and cellular biology freshman and resident of Apache-Santa Cruz Residence Hall.

In other recycling news, Arizona Student Recycling Association has received the approval of the Marshall Foundation, landlords of East University Boulevard and UA benefactor, to pursue recycling on the boulevard.

The student group is awaiting word from the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality on possible grant money.

"We sure hope there will be recycling on (East) University Boulevard," Schmidt said. "It is pretty complicated, but we are trying to get recycling in some form there, even if it is not a complete program."