Over 89M Pounds of Material Diverted Through RecycleMania
The nationwide college and university competition to recycle and compost material had 461 participating universities that diverted over 89 million pounds during the eight-week period. Antioch University was awarded Grand Champion with the highest percentage of overall recycled waste (93 percent); Kalamazoo College won the Per Capita Classic with over 48 pounds of recyclables per person; and Valencia College won in the Waste Minimization category with 2.87 pounds of waste per person. Rutgers University won the Gorilla Prize, the highest gross tonnage of combined paper, cardboard and bottle and cans regardless of campus population, at 1.53 million pounds.
Western Kentucky U Composts Food Waste
Recently installed into an existing university dining hall, the new food pulper/extractor takes pre and post-consumer food waste, breaks it down into small pieces, and then the material is hauled to the university's arboretum to be mixed with wood chips to create compost.
U Texas Austin Moves to Glass Collection
After switching to single stream collection of accepted recyclable material, the university amended its contract to begin glass collection due to an increase of the material on campus.
Angelo State U Introduces New Recycling Initiatives
The university's Student Government Association partnered with other student organizations for Adopt-A-Hallway, a program designed to increase waste diversion, and new recycling-specific dumpsters have been placed across campus allowing for a more efficient diversion and pick up process.
Bridgewater College Pilots Composting Program
The college recently implemented a composting pilot program for all dining hall food waste. Two student interns are conducting outreach efforts to the campus community about the new program.
U Massachusetts Adopts Recycling at Medical School
The university's Hahnemann Campus combined multiple medical supply rooms to reduce waste from expired materials and implemented a process change that allows for the removal of "blue wrap" before surgery, which thwarts contamination, so that it may be recycled.
George Washington U to Audit Recycle Bins
Attempting to bolsters its efforts to reduce waste by 50 percent over the next three years, the university's Sustainability Office will sift through select recycling bins across campus to identify commonly tossed items that cause contamination of the recyclables.
Portland State U Institutionalizes Composting
After a 2013 campus waste audit revealed that 36 percent of the material sent to the landfill could be composted, the university recently signed a new custodial contract that allows the campus community access to food scrap collection bins in departmental common areas.
Princeton U to Adopt Single-Stream Recycling
After a single-stream pilot study revealed a significant increase in recycling rates, the university recently made the decision to convert campus to the new method by the end of 2014.
U Toronto Begins Campaign to Eliminate Styrofoam
The university's Sustainability commission has recently been handing out free reusable containers, along with posting fliers, that attempt to reduce the amount of styrofoam containers coming from on-campus food trucks.
North Carolina State U Begins Pizza Box Composting
The university's Office of Waste Reduction and Recycling implemented the Pizza Box Composting Project, which seeks to decrease compostable waste on campus and encourage students to pay more attention to the importance of composting.
U Colorado Boulder Partners on Zero Waste Sports Practices
Sustainable Gamedays, sponsored by BASF, is a series of eight men and women's basketball games in which videos featuring facts about sustainability and organics recycling show on the arena screens, and demonstrates to game-goers how to use the many zero waste stations placed around the arena for recycling and composting.
Georgetown U Distributes Recycling Bins in Dorms
(United States): As part of a marketing effort to increase student engagement, the Office of Sustainability has distributed recycling bins and educational fliers to all on-campus residents in dorms.
PepsiCo Spring Recycling Challenge Announces Results
(United States): PepsiCo's Dream Machine Recycling Initiative encourages participating colleges and universities to increase recycling rates by using its kiosk to collect plastic and aluminum beverage bottles and cans. The top five schools collecting the highest average amount of containers per kiosk are Mountwest College, Joliet Junior College, Rider University, University of Pittsburgh and Florida International University.
U Florida Student Spearheads Composting
(United States): A student in the university's College of Design, Construction and Planning has started a 10-bin collection system in an effort to promote the activities of the Student Compost Cooperative whose long-term goal is to establish compost collection bins across campus.
Earlham College Opens Free Store
Attempting to divert waste throughout the year from the landfill, a permanent collection bin holds the unwanted items until they are taken to the store where the campus community can pick things up for free.
Humboldt State U to Eliminate Plastic Bags
Beginning this spring, the university will not use any single-use plastic bags, and the bookstore, eateries and marketplaces will begin charging ten cents per paper bag.
Davidson College Diverts Waste from Athletic Games
After noticing how much waste from athletic events is compostable or recyclable, students launched two athletic recycling and composting campaigns: one at a football game and one at a basketball game.
Oregon State U Creates Trash Sculpture
Attempting to raise awareness of how much is thrown away, a campus recycling group collected and sorted residence hall waste to create a monster, and labeled the visual display with how much waste an average person produces over a certain amount of time.
SUNY Purchase Cuts Ribbon on Composting System
The new large-scale system composts food waste from the food court and the on-campus coffee shop with plans to collect additional waste from other dining facilities as the operation gets underway.
U Washington Creates Waste Display
The new visual display aims to simplify waste disposal on campus and encourage greater composting and recycling by showing the items for compost, recycling and landfill.
Sabah U Malaysia Opens Recycling Center
(Malaysia): In a strategic effort to make its campus more sustainable, the university's Environmental Management System will be trained to implement the recycling initiative, conduct an environmental audit, and organize the first regional conference on sustainability.
Antioch U New England Launches Terracycle Partnership
Beginning in January 2014, the university's Social Justice and Sustainability team is collecting a variety of packaging materials that are currently not recycled, such as chip bags and toothpaste tubes, in an effort to increase its waste diversion.
Bentley U Install Recycling Machines
The newly installed recycling machines accept bottles and cans, giving a five-cent deposit back to recyclers and displaying real-time recycling data.
SUNY ESF Students to Initiate Campus-Wide Composting
Students from the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry are constructing a new facility for a campus-wide aerobic compost system that aids the composting process in colder months.
UC Berkeley Installs Recycled Recycling Bins
(U.S.): Agreeing to contribute to campus sustainability projects, the university's beverage contract funded each of the 13 newly installed, custom-designed bins, each made from 1,550 plastic milk jugs.
U California Berkeley Students Conduct Waste Audit
Striving to meet the University of California system's zero waste commitment by 2020, the recent student audit revealed a multitude of plastics in the waste stream. This new data will be helpful to the university's recent commitment to Plastics Disclosure Project, which tracks the lifecycle of plastics used on campus and pledges to reduce plastic waste.
Harvard U Students Jumpstart Bottled Water Ban
Student members of the university's Environmental Action Committee recently kicked off the Beyond the Bottle campaign with student signatures leading up to a ballot referendum to ban the sale of disposables.
U California Santa Cruz Holds Zero Waste Education Event
In a collaborative effort to divert material from landfills, the 2013 Fall Festival, which hosts a high number of new students, seeks to educate each other about the university's commitment to zero waste by 2020. The 2013 Fall Festival event diverted 88 percent of its waste from the landfill.
U California Santa Cruz Introduces Impact Award
(U.S.) The university's 2013 Chancellor's Sustainability Challenge inaugural Impact Award recognizes students who develop waste reduction/diversion projects, experience a deeper level of commitment, participate in existing programs, or raise awareness of the need to reduce waste. First place prize is $300.
British Columbia Institute of Tech Hosts Computer Reuse Program
In an effort to address the plethora of electronic waste inundating the landfills, the university will now be home to the West Coast branch of the World Computer Exchange, a service that will accept computers from members of campus or the community, refurbish the machines, and redistribute them to local and international communities in need.
Connecticut College Initiates Recycling Education Campaign
After recently observing trash and recyclables intermingling in bins across campus and to help end confusion about single-stream recycling, the Office of Sustainability started the Blue Campaign using billboards across campus to ask the question "What does blue mean to you?"
U California Santa Cruz Transitions to Bottle-Free
University Dining services announced recently that all Perk Coffee Bars no long sell single-use water bottles. All buildings where the coffee bars exist were outfitted with hydration stations that allow members to fill their own reusable bottles.
Clarkson U Students Conduct Waste Audit
As part of a fall class project, students separated the waste publicly in separate piles to understand the habits of the campus community. By way of this public display, passers-by were also educated about waste.
Eastfield College to Implement Sustainability Projects
The college's Green Team plans to install 16 water-bottle refilling stations in an effort to reduce waste from plastic bottles on campus; attach "smart heads" to sprinklers to conserve water; and create a new community garden project.
