Recycling at Columbia is complicated. Each campus has different rules that often differ from municipal laws or our hometown laws.

Bwog spoke with Cathy Resler from the office of Environmental Stewardship to find out more. Simply put, Barnard College recycles everything. Columbia’s Morningside campus, however, follows city laws.

The flowcharts often posted near recycling centers are too long and detailed for most people to bother with, and as a result, recyclables are often contaminated with unrecyclable materials.

To simplify your life, we have created a Handy Flowchart Thinger that should answer the constant question, “Can I recycle this?” Beware, this chart is only valid for the main Columbia Campus–not TC, MC, or Lamont-Doherty (click here for a printable black-on-white version):

Click for a large pretty PDF.

“But why,” you ask, “does Columbia only recycle certain materials?” We answer that question after the jump.

Read more…

Rats, garbage, and the yells of Take Back the Night–they’ve heard about it all.

Last year, the city surveyed 25,000 households and asked them to ponder what makes them happy.  These poetic responses were boiled down into a series of categories about city services and quality of life in various neighborhoods.

Using The New York Times’ handy animated chart, Bwog found that sweet Morningside is in the middle of the pack for many categories, most of which are irrelevant to your average Columbian (students were not included in the survey, as they don’t count as a “household,”). This area rated daytime subway safety and parks highly, as well as a variety of senior citizens’, educational, and public health services.

On the other hand, we had a huge problem with everything college-y: rat control, street noise, air quality, and crime, and we’d have to agree: rat control is just one of those things you can’t do too well.

For freshmen who may be well on their way to the freshman 15, Bwog Culinary Charter Jon Hill has created helpful charts on why to avoid Cafe 212.

You’re welcome.

 

If your learning style is more graphs than paragraphs, Bwog daily editor Jon Hill has created a highly scientific chart of the decline of Ivy endowments.

As you can see, the true cause of our nation’s problems was the pernicious combination of bad Eddie Murphy movies and poorly designed ketchup bottles. Damn you, Heinz.

 

As the fundraising for the presidential campaign wraps up, the Chronicle of Higher Education has compiled a total of all donations from “professors, college administrators, and other educators,” and has found that Columbia actually ranks higher among institutions donating to McCain than ones donating to Obama.

In fairness, this is only a shocking stat before one compares the actual amounts given: $267,000 to Obama (5th behind University of California, Harvard, Stanford, and UChicago) compared with only $35,000 to McCain (behind only Cal and Harvard). To the surprise of no one, as the Chronicle puts it in their headline, “Donors From Academe Favor Obama by a Wide Margin.” Of all institutions in New York, Columbia accounts for just over 1/3rd of McCain donations, and just above 20% of Obama donations.

Want to do your own finance sleuthing? Go to OpenSecrets.org.