Overall Rating Bronze - expired
Overall Score 35.35
Liaison Kimberly Post
Submission Date Sept. 26, 2014
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.0

Saint Joseph's College - ME
OP-22: Waste Minimization

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 2.30 / 5.00 Greg Teegarden
Professor
Natural Sciences
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Waste generated::
Performance Year Baseline Year
Materials recycled 30 Tons 39 Tons
Materials composted 92 Tons 90 Tons
Materials reused, donated or re-sold 2 Tons 2 Tons
Materials disposed in a solid waste landfill or incinerator 129 Tons 160 Tons

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Figures needed to determine "Weighted Campus Users”::
Performance Year Baseline Year
Number of residential students 678 678
Number of residential employees 4 4
Number of in-patient hospital beds 0 0
Full-time equivalent enrollment 2,649 2,649
Full-time equivalent of employees 618 618
Full-time equivalent of distance education students 1,653 1,653

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Start and end dates of the performance year and baseline year (or three-year periods):
Start Date End Date
Performance Year Sept. 1, 2013 Aug. 31, 2014
Baseline Year Sept. 1, 2012 Aug. 31, 2013

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A brief description of when and why the waste generation baseline was adopted:
These are the years where the company that does our hauling was able to give us the most complete data. Additionally, in September of 2013 we rolled out a program making it far easier for faculty and staff to recycle than to dispose of trash by removing trash bins from faculty and staff offices. Recycling bins have remained in offices. Employees need to manage their own trash by delivering it to communal waste management stations.

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A brief description of any (non-food) waste audits employed by the institution:
Over Earth week we have done major trash audits which have been student led. All trash collected on campus over the course of 24 hours was opened in public and compostables and recyclables were removed. We learned that we could be much more effective at recycling.

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A brief description of any institutional procurement policies designed to prevent waste:
No bottled water is purchased with any institutional money.

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A brief description of any surplus department or formal office supplies exchange program that facilitates reuse of materials:
None, yet!

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A brief description of the institution's efforts to make materials available online by default rather than printing them:
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A brief description of any limits on paper and ink consumption employed by the institution:
Each student get 250 free pages per semester when logged in on campus computers. After this limit is exceeded, students must pay.

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A brief description of any programs employed by the institution to reduce residence hall move-in/move-out waste:
We have been promoting our Go Green and Go Home Program now for about 5 years. This year we will partner with Goodwill Industries of Northern New England and set up a donation station in each residence hall. Our efforts are to educate the campus community and minimize the amount of good usable stuff that ends up in the dumpster. We also encourage recycling of all single-sort recyclables. Goodwill will responsibly recycle all broken electronics collected as well.

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A brief description of any other (non-food) waste minimization strategies employed by the institution:
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A brief description of any food waste audits employed by the institution:
Several service learning projects have been performed examining food waste by students in the Ecology and the Environmental Challenge Course. The results were shared with the campus community through posters and presentations.

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A brief description of any programs and/or practices to track and reduce pre-consumer food waste in the form of kitchen food waste, prep waste and spoilage:
The kitchen currently is participating in Lean Paths, a program where ALL DINING HALL WASTE is weighed. When expense on food exceed a million dollars per year, even a few percent savings will pay for the program and ultimately hopefully help to decrease our amount of food wasted up front in the dining hall.

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A brief description of programs and/or practices to track and reduce post-consumer food waste:
Our trayless program started in August of 2007. I believe we were the first college to go completely trayless dining. The year before we did a trayless day of dining and monitored the results. It was about 25% less waste on the trayless days. Bascially we just implemented the program upon return. The biggest complaints came from faculty and staff but after one week it was all good!!

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A brief description of the institution's provision of reusable and/or third party certified compostable to-go containers for to-go food and beverage items (in conjunction with a composting program):
The board plan offers a TO-GO program where the student purchases a reusable container for $5.00. This container can be used at any meal period for a swipe of their meal card. When they bring back the container dirty we replace it with a clean one. This is the only TO-GO option we offer. We do not allow any other form of take out f

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A brief description of the institution's provision of reusable service ware for “dine in” meals and reusable and/or third party certified compostable service ware for to-go meals (in conjunction with a composting program):
For large events we have been using NO disposable or compostable material for plates or cutlery. We are then composting all food waste and napkins.

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A brief description of any discounts offered to customers who use reusable containers (e.g. mugs) instead of disposable or compostable containers in to-go food service operations:
Any reusable mug can be refilled at our discounted rate which saves 25 cents on a beverage.

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A brief description of other dining services waste minimization programs and initiatives:
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The website URL where information about the institution’s waste minimization initiatives is available:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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