Emory University
OP-18: Waste Minimization and Diversion

In 2005, Emory's first Sustainability Vision was developed, using 2005, the first year that reliable data were available, as a baseline for all quantitative goals.

In April 2015, Emory adopted a new Sustainability Vision & Strategic Plan, 2025, which set 2015 as a baseline year for Emory's goal to reach 95% diversion from landfills by 2025. Therefore, the baseline year for STARS reporting has been updated to FY16 to reflect this alignment.

Emory recycles batteries, aerosols, lamps, vehicles, medical equipment, inkjet & toner cartridges, and wood waste. Of these items, only cartridges, medical equipment, vehicles, and wood waste are included in the data for this credit. Batteries, aerosols, and lamps are considered universal waste and therefore are not counted in this credit.

The “Don’t Dump It, Donate It” program allows students an outlet to a partnership with Residence Life and Housing Operations, Emory Recycles, and the Office of Sustainability Initiatives (OSI), to donate their unwanted items rather than throw them in dumpsters headed for Georgia landfills. Donations can include furniture, electronics, small household items, clothing, school supplies, books, and non-perishable food. All proceeds from the sale of these items benefit Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta through Emory’s partnership with America’s Thrift.

All recycling, composting, and landfill bins are labeled and accompanied by visual signs that depict what should be placed in each bin. The bins, labels, and collection bags are standardized and color-coded in building interiors and exteriors - blue bins for recycling, green for composting, and black for landfill. The OSI hands out clings, which provide prompts about printing less, taking fewer paper towels, turning off the lights, and turning off the faucet, and other waste minimization and sustainability practices. 

The Zero Waste Ambassadors program is a peer-to-peer educational effort led by the OSI to train staff, faculty, and students from across the enterprise to educate their campus networks about waste reduction and diversion at Emory.

Emory's waste vendor conducts physical sorting waste audits as needed in different areas of campus. Visual audits are used daily by Building & Residential Services staff who service the bins. They record information about their audit and the volume of the waste overall utilizing an app. 

A consultant team completed a comprehensive campus-wide assessment of all university materials management systems and recently reported its assessment findings. Their methodology included visual audits of waste bins in various generate areas e.g. buildings with similar functions. The audits informed the Materials Management Master Plan produced for recommendations on how to move toward Emory's goal of 95% landfill diversion by 2025.

Emory is a founding member of the Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council, which influences national sustainable purchasing best practices and facilitates procurement sustainability learning from all institutional sectors.

The Procurement Office and Office of Sustainability Initiatives collaborated on several waste-reduction initiatives, including a ban on many Styrofoam products from certain suppliers (e.g. food service) and the online purchasing marketplace, requiring alternatives to be made available at competitive price points; reducing the use of single-use coffee and tea machines, and finding alternatives that produce waste that can be composted in Emory's waste management system; and requesting that all caterers offer a zero landfill waste program on Emory's campus. The Procurement office supports many facets of sustainability practices employed across Emory University: https://finance.emory.edu/home/procurement/sourcing/green-purchasing.html 

Emory’s Surplus Property, a department of the Campus Services Division, provides the resale, liquidation, salvage, or donation of University-owned surplus furniture, equipment, and vehicles. When an Emory department is no longer able to use furniture, equipment, or vehicles due to the physical condition, lack of technological capability, or inefficiency of operation, Surplus Property can sell the item(s) to another Emory department, to Emory faculty, staff or students, liquidate the item(s), or salvage the item(s).

Emory's Green Lab program rewards labs that facilitate the reuse of supplies and chemicals between laboratories, and the Chemistry department utilizes a stock room for chemicals and supplies which incorporates redistribution and reuse of unused or partially used items.

Emory's Green Offices program rewards offices that prioritize the reuse of office equipment and furniture, and use equipment to the full extent of its lifetime.

Emory Surplus supports the prudent disposition of surplus furniture, equipment, and vehicles, which are property of Emory University, by facilitating the resale, liquidation, salvage, or donation of such items. Emory students, faculty, and staff can purchase the resale items at low cost.

http://www.campserv.emory.edu/fm/brs/surplus.html 

Admissions offices at Emory have moved to all online systems which reduces ink and paper. Emory has an online course catalog, and most divisions use online course evaluations.

Course registration at Emory is online only. There is no paper alternative. All course schedules and directories can be found online, as well as course catalogs in the various schools. In general practice, most schools only provide these items to students in hard copy on request or in the main office. Emory College recently decided that the College Course Catalog would no longer be printed on paper and is only available online.
http://atlas.college.emory.edu/index.html 

The School of Medicine, which oversees the M.D. program as well as other Allied Health programs, moved several years ago to make all materials only available online. The School of Nursing only prints course catalogs on request, otherwise, students are directed to an online version. Several of Emory's academic units use online course evaluations rather than paper evaluations.

Emory's Green Office program rewards offices for taking voluntary steps to make offices more sustainable, which includes reducing paper consumption by making materials available online and utilizing online subscriptions for publications.

Most of Emory's publications are available in an online format, and the Emory mobile app and website include an online directory, maps, news, calendar, course catalog, and transit maps. 

Emory's staff orientation materials are only available online, and new staff must complete these readings and forms and submit them online when they are hired. 

All employees can opt into receiving their tax forms electronically and to have their paychecks directly deposited, rather than printed and cut as physical checks. If a department's employee does receive physical checks, a department is charged for the expense of processing and printing a physical check.

Through an OSI Incentives Fund grant, the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts Center was also able to pilot a new paperless ticketing system in 2018.

In addition to normal ongoing Emory recycling and composting services in all residence halls, during move-in and move-out, cardboard and Styrofoam collection areas are placed outside every residence hall during move-in and move-out. Before arrival, first-year students receive move-in directions, which suggest ways to reduce waste before arriving on campus and ways to divert waste once students arrive. The “Don’t Dump It, Donate It” program allows students an outlet to a partnership with Residence Life and Housing Operations, Emory Recycles, and the Office of Sustainability Initiatives (OSI), to donate their unwanted items rather than throw them in dumpsters headed for Georgia landfills. Donations can include furniture, electronics, small household items, clothing, school supplies, books, and non-perishable food. All proceeds from the sale of these items benefit Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta through Emory’s partnership with America’s Thrift.
https://sustainability.emory.edu/move-out-review/ 

Emory Recycles has partnered with local companies to minimize landfill waste coming from unique sources, such as cooking oil, which is converted into fuel for our shuttles. Batteries, aerosols, bulbs and lamps, ink and toner cartridges, packing Styrofoam, and glass, which is hard to recycle in local markets unless separated, are all collected at a hard-to-recycle station located in most major buildings. Emory Recycles has also partnered with various departments such as the library's preservation department, to find ways to recycle the unique waste that comes from those departments.
https://sustainability.emory.edu/emory-waste-collection-streams/ 
https://sustainability.emory.edu/initiatives/waste/hard-to-recycle-materials-map/ 

All data reported in this section are from September 2022-August 2023.

https://sustainability.emory.edu/initiatives/waste/ 
https://sustainability.emory.edu/programs/zero-landfill-waste/ 
https://sustainability.emory.edu/programs/laboratory-landfill-diversion/ 

Despite insecurity about the completeness of the waste data coming from Emory's healthcare facilities, AASHE recommended that Emory "report the best waste figures you have for the healthcare facilities . . . . [I]f the healthcare facilities are included in the institutional boundary, the rule of thumb is that some data for those facilities is better than no waste data at all. . . ." Therefore, available data for the Emory University Hospital, the Emory University Hospital Tower, and Emory Rehabilitation Hospital are included  Data from the Emory Clinics A and B was known to be incomplete, but what was available has been included in this credit.