Jason Lazarus stepped down from his ASUAF recycling director position Friday, leaving no one on the student government's recycling staff to manage the program.

Lazarus, 24, ran the student-recycling program for over two years. In an e-mail to the student government, Lazarus said he had been offered another job that he could not turn down.

The Associated Students of the University of Alaska Fairbanks has yet to hire a new recycling director. The body hired a new recycling assistant last week, but has not been publicly announced or finalized.

President Thom Walker said they are in the process of finding an assistant, and the assistant will fill-in for the director temporarily. Lazarus promised that he would also help until ASUAF hired a new director.

"I'll be working a few hours each week to keep things from falling apart," he wrote in his e-mail, "but this does mean that any help you can offer the department will be most helpful."

No one replied via the listserv, and Lazarus said the only senator to volunteer was Brandon Meston. "He's been the only one that's helped out, and his help has been amazing."

Meston said the Senate is aware of the situation, and Walker said he would manage the glass pick-up and give up some spare time when he could.

The program wants volunteers, Lazarus said, especially for the first month while the new assistant is being trained. Volunteers could do as little as call ASUAF to tell them the bins in their halls are empty and don't need emptied that week, he said.

The director position had been vacant for at least five months, Lazarus said, when he took the job in September 2002. Bins had been overfilling, he said, and some halls were forced to throw theirs away with the recycling material still in them.

Initially, Lazarus could do his job in seven hours without an assistant, he said. But today, the job requires 35 hours per week, he told the Senate via e-mail, and he can only work 20 hours due to student employment rules.

Under Lazarus, the recycling program has collected 100 tons of glass since it began February. He also oversaw the start of plastic bag and some packing material recycling and helped restart the ink cartridge program.

The program brought in a record amount of money during his time, over $1400 in cash last year, and exceeded the fiscal year's expectations by 40 percent, according to a listserv e-mail.

He had expressed some frustration with the workload. "Glass Recycling in Fairbanks has seriously been busting my ass," he wrote on his website in July. "I really don't think that the people of this town even consider how annoying they can be when they leave glass all over the place, overfill bins, create messes, or leave literally trash there for us to pickup."

Lazarus said the job will require a huge amount of training, and has written a 13-page transition packet for whoever takes over.

Although the university has not advertised the job yet, ASUAF has already received two applications. Lazarus said the position requires greater responsibility than any student position he knows, but there was the "potential that you'll get a sour apple" instead of someone great.

"I hope that there's someone that comes into this position and does it ten times better than I did," he said.

Former Recycling Director Jason Lazarus

Sun Star Photo

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