Bowdoin College
OP-18: Waste Minimization and Diversion

Maine Standard Biofuels collects used fryer oil from the dining halls at Bowdoin and converts the oils to fuels and products like biodiesel and bioheat to be resold. This recycling process at the biorefinery generates near-zero waste. Before the fryer oil is collected, the lard is seperated from the oil.

In previous submissions we had been using 2004-2005 as the baseline year but in 2014-2015 we started to track all trash and recycling data differently and more comprehensively using a system that we are still using today. Starting in 2014-2015 we began to include all trash and recycling dumpsters on campus into our data tracking. Prior to this we only counted waste that was actually weighed at a scale either at the transfer station (recycling), the landfill (trash) or from two large dumpsters on campus where we actually received weights. Starting in 2014 we began to include estimated numbers for the trash and recycle dumpsters on campus. To arrive at these numbers we use the volume of the dumpster and EPA estimates

 https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-04/documents/volume_to_weight_conversion_factors_memorandum_04192016_508fnl.pdf

to determine the weights. We realized we should use this as a baseline, in order to compare apples to apples, so to speak. Even though these are estimates rather than hard weights from a scale, they are more reflective of Bowdoin's actual waste stream, thus the change in recording our data.

The college is charged twice as much for contaminated recycling than non-contaminated recycling since it is marked as trash. This price increase encourages reduction of contamination.

Bowdoin is committed to increasing its waste diversion rate through efforts to change students daily waste habits. The sustainability office's EcoRep program and residential life's proctors and resident assistants help spread awareness of how students can be more conscious of their waste behaviors day to day with posters and emails to all of the students in residential buildings. Students, staff , and faculty are educated on what can be composted or recycled and where those materials belong when they are disposed of. New, easily distinguishable zero-sort recycling dumpsters have been installed at all campus apartment complexes and each of the eight College Houses have installed composting cones.

The Eco Reps from each first year residence hall and each College House conduct annual waste audits of their respective halls.

Bowdoin worked with our office suppy vendor, W.B. Mason, to provide the college with reusable totes for delivery to reduce the waste produced by shipping materials. It lasted for a couple of years but unfortunately the office supply vendor has discontinued that program. The college has adopted a “Green Mondays and Wednesdays” program that does not allow delivery to campus on these days to reduce ghg emissions.

There is also an online warehouse forum for material exchange run by Facilities Management, typically used for surplus office and conference room furniture. This warehouse encourages offices to use these items in the warehouse rather than buying new items. The sustainability office manages an office supply reuse program, run similarly to the furniture warehouse, known as The Office Supply Reuse Shop. They accept most office supplies and then offer them for reuse to other faculty and staff on campus As the shop fills up, surplus items are donated to local non-profits that help provide school supplies to teachers.

The institution has a Facebook page (Bowdoin Sell & Swap) and a website (Bowdoin Classifieds) for peer-to-peer exchange of goods. There are also two to three annual clothing swap events where the residential halls have a box for the students to put their unwanted clothes in and if they find another clothing item they want from the box, they can take it.

To reduce waste and encourage less paper usage, Bowdoin has adopted an "allocation, then charge" model for printing and copying. Each semester, students receive a $60 credit - equivalent to 750 black-and-white, double-sided sheets. Single-sided prints are 5 cents per page, while double-sided prints are 8 cents per page. Once a student's semester's allocation is exhausted, print costs are debited from their OneCard account. Faculty and staff printing is now run through a program called Paper Cut https://www.papercut.com/ Each employee has a dashboard where they can view all of their print jobs, and associated paper use and cost. Campus Services, which oversees printing, also has access to this data to track printing usage on campus.

Most college materials are now default available online instead of in print. Student and staff employee time cards are online, as are deposit stubs and annual tax forms, as well as most of Bowdoin's institutional policies and procedures. The default distribution of college directories,course catalogues, and handbooks are online and are only available in print in limited quantities by request. Additionally, annual employee benefit enrollment information is now distributed online instead of in print. All campus invoicing has moved to an on-line paperless process. Many professors post relevant course material on Bowdoin's online site, Canvas, and encourage students to print as little material as possible. Additionally, the amount of paper in the first-year Orientation packets has been significantly reduced, and all of the material is now available on Canvas. Most placement tests are also required to be done online, and some courses have online quizzes on Canvas.

Bowdoin provides extra recycling dumpsters during first-year move-in and spring move-out to encourage students to recycle their cardboard boxes, papers, etc. We hire student employees to stand at each recycle dumpster to make sure that material is properly broken down and separated — it makes a huge difference! At the end of the year, Bowdoin provides Give 'N Go boxes to every residential dorm as well. Students are encouraged to donate any items (rugs, lights, mirrors, clothing, bedding) that they no longer want or cannot travel home with. After all students have left, the collected items are picked up by Bowdoin's Give and Go team and redistributed to either Goodwill of Northern New England or Bowdoin's own FreeCycle program, which collects goods to redistribute to incoming students the following year. Freecycle items are limited to hard goods one would buy for a dorm room (e.g. hangers, lamps, fans, kitchen supplies, cleaning supplies, and storage containers). Goodwill takes the more soft-good materials (e.g. clothes, bedding, rugs, decorations) to their warehouse, where items are sorted and redistributed throughout their New England stores. The sustainability office at Bowdoin collected over 700 pounds of food and delivered it to the Midcoast Hunger Prevention Program in Brunswick, which distributes the collected food to local individuals and families in need.

For many years Bowdoin's libraries have collected single-sided paper that is abandoned at the libraries public printers and sends the paper to the Bowdoin Copy Center, which binds the scrap paper into reusable note pads. The Bowdoin grounds department maintains a spot on campus for pallet recycling. When the pile gets large enough (more than fifty pallets) a local pallet recycling company will come by campus to retrieve the pallets for reuse and recycle.