Overall Rating Silver - expired
Overall Score 57.65
Liaison Michelle Seppala Gibbs
Submission Date March 6, 2020

STARS v2.2

Hope College
OP-20: Hazardous Waste Management

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 1.00 / 1.00 Michelle Gibbs
Director
Office of Sustainability
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Does the institution have strategies in place to safely dispose of all hazardous, special (e.g. coal ash), universal, and non-regulated chemical waste and seek to minimize the presence of these materials on campus?:
Yes

A brief description of steps taken to reduce hazardous, special (e.g. coal ash), universal, and non-regulated chemical waste:

Hope attempts to reduce hazardous waste as much as possible in all areas. This includes replacing light bulbs containing high levels of mercury, inspecting water lines for lead, and surveying all buildings for potential hazardous and non-regulated chemical waste and initiating actions plans for its reduction or disposal.

lesser mercury bulbs, ballasts no pcbs, water supply lines and drinking fountains inspected for lead, asbestos removed when possible, survey buildings/cottages for asbestos and lead, degreaser less hazardous -


A brief description of how the institution safely disposes of hazardous, universal, and non-regulated chemical waste:

Hope contracts outside companies who specialize in hazardous waste removal to safely dispose of all hazardous, universal, and non-regulated chemical waste. All proper chains of custody are followed.


A brief description of any significant hazardous material release incidents during the previous three years, including volume, impact and response/remediation:

N/A - 0


A brief description of any inventory system employed by the institution to facilitate the reuse or redistribution of laboratory chemicals:

The Chemistry Department Lab Director, keeps an inventory of all laboratory chemicals which is shared with other chemical users. Using this inventory, Hope maximizes the amount of laboratory chemicals we are able to reuse or share.


Does the institution have or participate in a program to responsibly recycle, reuse, and/or refurbish electronic waste generated by the institution?:
Yes

Does the institution have or participate in a program to responsibly recycle, reuse, and/or refurbish electronic waste generated by students?:
Yes

A brief description of the electronic waste recycling program(s), including information about how electronic waste generated by the institution and/or students is recycled:

The computing and information technology department coordinates all electronic waste recycling for Hope's campus and the Physical Plant Team Coordinates battery recycling. There are locations throughout campus for faculty, staff, and students to drop-off used toner cartridges and batteries. All large electronic waste is removed by CIT and taken to the appropriate recycle location.
Recycling of all campus electronics as well as employee/student personal equipment through MI EGLE registered facility.

Staff from the our Library and our Joint Archives departments have been working on transferring all old VHS tapes to either DVD for our researchers and then converting them to MP4’s and stored on our computer server for digital preservation and future access. Their teams approached the Sustainability Office about this because they did not want to throw the VHS tapes in the trash. We researched a local recycler where they could take them. There is a small fee to do this, so we appreciate the extra work these teams have done for this. The project has been successfully going on since 2017 and approximately 25 boxes of tapes have been recycled. They estimate 40 tapes per box.


Is the institution’s electronic waste recycler certified under the e-Stewards and/or Responsible Recycling (R2) standards?:
Yes

Website URL where information about the institution’s hazardous waste program is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
---

Data source(s) and notes about the submission:

We use Padnos Electronic recycling (https://padnos.com/sell-your-scrap/sell-electronics/) and Comprenew Electronic Recycling (https://comprenew.org/about/certifications/).


The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.