Spring 2024 Sustainability Fellow: Kyle Rutter

Partner: Florida Department of Environmental Protection

Project: Public Sector Recycling Reporting Program

Student: Kyle Rutter

Kyle Rutter, a senior studying International Affairs and Economics, served as a Sustainability Fellow for the Spring 2024 cohort. With a strong passion for public service, Kyle embraced the opportunity to give back to the community by serving as a Fellow. For his project, Kyle partnered with Jennifer Ciaravella at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) to create a Best Management Practices guide on how to design and implement a recycling program in the office that would eventually go live online. 

The goal of this project was to create a guide that provided the basics of a recycling program so that other government offices and agencies would better comprehend why recycling in the office is important, what the benefits of recycling are, how to make an in-office recycling program effective, how agencies should report their recycling amounts every year to the FDEP, and more. This guide can then be used by Florida public sector agencies, including state agencies like the Department of Education or Department of Transportation, state universities like FSU and UF, local governments, and a myriad of other different organizations once accessible online. 

Kyle’s role as a Sustainability Fellow was to conduct research regarding recycling and sustainability efforts in the workplace, combing through scattered pieces of information on web pages and PDFs, and combining this information to be more easily located in one go-to resource.  Since agencies are not required to have a recycling program, creating such a resource that combines all FDEP guidelines and policies, information from other environmental organizations, and even from the federal government, makes the process of implementing recycling programs and collecting data as easy as possible.  

Kyle also conducted site visits to different agencies including the Department of Education office, the FDEP’s office, and FSU Facilities to gain a stronger perspective regarding the problems public sector agencies are facing when attempting to implement a recycling program to therefore incorporate solutions into the Best Management Practices guide. 

“This project will hopefully encourage Florida government agencies to implement a recycling program and report their recycling to the FDEP, so the state of Florida can increase sustainability efforts across the board,” said Rutter. 

Public sector agencies are required to report recycling amounts through the Re-TRAC system, but in the past, not all agencies have been diligent about doing so. The hope of this project is that this Best Management Practices guide will demystify both the recycling program and the recycling reporting process, thus encouraging environmental consciousness among the Florida public sector agencies so that they can lead the state in sustainability efforts. 

Kyle is also taking what he has learned throughout this project process into his sustainability future as he graduates from FSU and takes his next steps in pursuing a career in public service. 

“Since I want to work in public service, this experience has been incredibly insightful into how government works and the barriers to creating/implementing programs like the one I have helped work on. It is inspiring to see public servants care so much about their jobs and the causes they advocate for,” said Rutter. 

Learn more about Kyle’s project here. 

To learn more about the Sustainability Fellows program, visit sustainablecampus.fsu.edu/sustainability-fellows.