Courtesy Photo Tyler Koontz is a senior at the College of William and Mary who paired with another student last summer to design a recycling program for the college. Koontz, a graduate of Linganore High School and Frederick Community College, estimated the college could save $40,000 in trash removal expenditures by improving its recycling program.

Koontz, a graduate of Frederick Community College, is a senior at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va. He and another student received a grant over the summer to work on the recycling plan. Forty students submitted proposals for sustainability projects at the college; four proposals were accepted.

There was a plan in place, Koontz said, but "it was kind of dormant." Koontz and fellow student Judi Sclafani's proposals were combined into one project that identified areas where the college could improve.

"The college was very supportive," Koontz said. "They gave us all the resources we needed."

The college did have recycling, but containers were too small. Each building had a single 96-gallon container. Koontz and Sclafani suggested the college use bins holding 4 or 8 cubic yards outside dormitories and dining halls. They did this during the summer school session.

"The containers were strategically placed," Koontz said. Every room is given a small recycling bin, and it's up to the occupant of that room to dump the bin into the larger container.

The containers had a small contamination rate of 6 percent to 8 percent trash.

"It was relatively clean," Koontz said.

Recycling pickup is cheaper than trash pickup, and that is where the savings are, he said.

The college wants recycling activities to be in keeping with the campus, with the bins kept in out-of-the-way areas.

"We're a small campus in the heart of colonial Williamsburg," Koontz said.

There is not large-scale food waste composting, but there is a small, student-run operation.

The project has inspired people on campus to talk about recycling, "which is a great first step," Koontz said.

The project taught him a lot about recycling procedures.

"We met with the recycling vendor, and went to their sorting facility," he said. "One of the misconceptions about things that are collected for recycling is are they actually being recycled. That was an eye-opening experience."

It was part of an overall recycling audit Koontz and Sclafani conducted. The waste goes to a $12 million sorting facility in Chesapeake, Va. The college is continuing the audit this fall, tracking the amount of recycling that is collected.

Koontz is majoring in environmental policy, and plans to return to FCC upon graduation in December. There he will enroll in the college's Emergency Management Associate program, developed in conjunction with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Koontz hopes to go into international disaster relief work. "A lot of major problems in disaster relief result from policy, so I figure I'll have a better perspective to write policy," he said.

He plans to get a master's degree in emergency management.

Koontz graduated from Linganore High School in 2005.