When Al Krause came to the University of Florida in February of 1988, he had no idea that he would leave eighteen years later as the architect of one of the most successful institutional recycling programs in the United States. The retired Army veteran, who had risen to the rank of major during his twenty years in the armed services, was just looking for a job. "I had just retired from the military", he said. "My wife and I had moved to Florida, down to Miami, to live near some older relatives of hers, and those relatives had passed away. So I started looking for work, and I came up here to Gainesville to the University to drop off my resume. It just so happened that as I was in the personnel office, they were looking for someone with my qualifications to fill a position at the Physical Plant. So I went for an interview the same day, and I ended up getting the job."
Originally, Al was hired to develop and implement policies and procedures for PPD to deal with outside contractors. But when Florida’s Solid Waste Management Act was passed in 1988, UF (along with all other state institutions) was required by law to implement a recycling initiative on campus. Then-PPD Director Robert Kramer offered Al the position of coordinator of the fledgling program, and he accepted. Thus, the university’s Recycling Program was born.
"In the beginning, I had no budget, and I wasn’t allowed to hire any employees for the recycling program," Al said. "That was part of the state law – the thinking at that time was that recycling would be a gold mine of riches. Everybody thought that we would take garbage and magically convert it to material for industry and make big bucks, and we’d make so much that the recycling program would be able to support itself without any money from the state. In reality, things were quite a bit different! I had to borrow money from another department, with the promise that I’d pay it back by the end of the year, just to get off the ground that first year."
Al began putting the pieces in place for the program as quickly as possible. He combed the campus, looking at waste types and the activities that created them, and figured out what types of waste material were the best candidates for recycling. “Yard waste, paper, concrete and scrap metal," he said. "Those were the items that brought in the most revenue at the beginning, and those are still our most valuable recyclable resources."
The program began to move into gear. Each campus building’s waste paper output was calculated and collection bins were allocated as necessary. Yard waste was collected, composted and turned into mulch. Al contracted with a local rock crushing company to crush old cement, and he located a buying outlet in Gainesville to purchase scrap metal.
"We ended up re-defining a lot of old metal surplus property as scrap, since it was being disposed of anyway," Al explained. "This allowed us to classify it as refuse under the state guidelines, and therefore we were able to recover and sell it in order to fund the program."
Thanks to Al’s efforts, UF’s recycling program hit the state goal of recycling 30% of campus waste after just eighteen months, creating significant savings for the University. And the program continued to grow as more members of campus became aware of its existence and began recycling. It grew so much, in fact, that Al began to realize that this was much more than a one-man job.
"At a certain point, I realized that I was going to have to have some help to manage this thing," he said, smiling. "So after a few years, I got an OPS assistant, a student, to work with me. And then in 1999, I finally was able to hire a full-time employee, Steve Butler, for the recycling program, and he’s been with us ever since."
Although having an extra employee made a big difference for the program, Al still saw opportunity for continued growth in PPD’s recycling effort. "I knew that our program could never reach its full potential with the resources that we were operating with at that time," he said. "So in 2000, I asked for, and received, control of the entire Solid Waste Management office at Physical Plant. This allowed us to create a comprehensive, integrated waste management program, and opened up many new opportunities for our recycling efforts. We were able to expand our paper recycling program to include dumpsters, compactors and balers on campus. We could use the garbage trucks to haul more waste and increase our productivity. Our increased manpower and resources allowed us to begin recycling items such as plastics, and chemical and automotive waste."
Today the University of Florida recycling program stands among the best in the nation. Annually, an average of 37% of the total campus waste is recycled, and that number is increasing every year. "We recycle almost everything that Physical Plant touches," says Al Krause.
"Al has been running our program for so long that his name is synonymous with recycling here at Physical Plant and the University of Florida," said PPD Director Dave O’Brien. "He has built the program from the ground up, and has done an outstanding job of managing our resources. Al has created a recycling effort that consistently exceeds the standards set by the State of Florida, and has brought UF and PPD national acclaim."
Now that he’s retired from Physical Plant, Al says he plans to take things easy until after the Christmas holidays. "I have a lot of catching up on stuff to do at home," he said. "And I plan to go out to California and visit some relatives. After the new year, though, I want to work on expanding my own consulting business – I provide advice to organizations and individuals who work with caves, on cave management and protection, development, and related policies and issues. I’m the director of the Florida Cave Survey, and a Fellow in the National Speleological Society, and have explored caves all over the country. I have done consulting work for organizations such as the World Wildlife Federation and the National Parks Association, as well as state governments and DOT."
It would not be possible to list everyone who helped make the recycling program a success over the years, according to Al. "There were literally thousands of people who have helped build the program - some in an official capacity, some as volunteers, some in countless other ways," he said. "I would, however, like to thank PPD Director Dave O’Brien, VP of Finance and Administration Ed Poppell, and PPD Associate Director of Operations Eric Cochran. They have all been extremely supportive, reliable and helpful through the years, and gave our recycling program their whole-hearted support. Also, the day-to-day contributions of UF and PPD staff have been invaluable, and much appreciated. There are just so many people who gave time and effort and really made the program and myself a success."
Following Al’s retirement, Dale Morris will take over as Recycling/Solid Waste Coordinator at Physical Plant, and the outgoing coordinator says the program is in good hands. "Dale is a great choice to take this program to the next level," Al said. "He’s very qualified and very capable, and will be able to maintain and improve our recycling efforts for the future."
However, future expansion of the UF recycling program will be largely contingent on the amount of support that it receives from the university community, according to Krause. He said, "To take that next step forward, we need co-operation from other areas of campus, other departments – there is much that can be done to help PPD with our recycling efforts, and I hope that the rest of campus will follow suit and increase their participation in our program. Besides creating revenue for the University and saving money, recycling enhances our image and contributes to the sustainability of our local and global community, and minimizing our trash output is a goal we should all be working towards. The most environmentally friendly thing that people can do is to reduce your consumption at the source – buy only those things that you really need, avoid excessive packaging, and buy durable, repairable items. Reducing waste is mainly a matter of reducing consumption, buying things that will last, and diverting useful things to people who can use them."