Thompson Rivers University
OP-22: Waste Minimization

A 2005 baseline was adopted for the 2011 Stars Report, and so in order to be consistent moving forward, it will be used again for this report.

In the summer of 2014, small scale waste audits were conducted by a co-op research student for the TRU Office of Environment and Sustainability. The audits were conducted to compare the differences between contamination rates of single, stand-alone waste, recycling, and refundable bins compared to the use of a centralized Zero Waste station.

At TRU, the identification of equipment and other reusable materials that need to be disposed of is undertaken by every TRU department on a regular basis. The actual disposal of such equipment is the responsibility of Procurement Services. There are several ways to dispose of equipment. If replacement equipment needs to be purchased, then every effort is made to obtain a reasonable trade-in-allowance for the old equipment by selling it. In this case, Procurement Services would negotiate with the vendors interested in supplying the replacement equipment. To sell old goods, personnel fill out a Disposal of Obsolete & Surplus Goods Form and send it to Procurement Services. The Procurement Manager will then do one of the following to dispose of the unwanted equipment or materials: re-use it within another TRU dpartment; post the item for sale on BC Auction; offer the item to other educational institutions; donate it to charity, or dispose of it in an environmentally. Electronic waste goes to a recycling plant to be reused or disposed of environmentally responsible manner. Raw materials (metals) are picked up and recycled. Paper documents and other paper related materials are recycled with the company Iron Mountain. All toner cartridges are recycled through Grand and Toy or sent back to the manufacturer. Source: Julie Gemin, Procurement Manager, TRU

If the item on the Obsolete Surplus Goods form shows working condition, it is posted for sale through BC Auction. Surplus non-working obsolete items get recycled through Encorp Recycling Corp.. They pick up in TRU Stores as and when required. Source: Lisa Fiset, Purchaser, TRU

The university makes course catalogues, course schedules, and directories available online. Printed catalogues are available at an extra cost.

Free printing does not occur at TRU photocopier stations in either the libraries or the Printshop. The current price per page is $0.10 and prints double-sided automatically. Students are required to bring their own paper to computer labs for printing, and can only print colour at the Printshop ($1.00 per page). All printing that occurs is doubled-sided by default and students are encouraged to use a size 11 font with one inch margins in order to reduce the amount of paper being printed. Students are also encouraged to read and edit journals online instead of printing. Currently, no new desk-top printers will be bought for any staff member, unless a special exception warrants it (for example, if there is a mobility issue). Once all of the 250 current desk-top printers come to the end of natural life-cycle, they won't be replaced. Instead, all staff members will be encouraged to use the large, centrally-located multi-function printers. It has been proven in other institutions that employing this type of 'no desk-top printers' program cuts down on the amount of paper and ink used, since most people think twice before printing something since they now have to walk further to go collect it.

Residence halls on campus currently run many programs to control waste at move-in and move-out. There is a donation bin that is outside of the main entrance year-round and during peak times the number of pick-ups increase. They host food drives for all leftover perishable food items and provide an 'item swap' event for students. They continually search for new ways to reduce waste produced during these times. Source: Jacquie Saucier, Residence Services Supervisor.

TRU has signed onto the new pan-Canadian National Zero-Waste Council, and is taking aggressive steps to acheive the goal of becoming a zero-waste institution. It recently spend approximately $60,000.00 to buy 90 new zero-waste stations (with a 4 or 5 bin waste stream set-up) in order to help acheive this goal. In early Sept 2014 it hosted its first zero-waste event during the main student Orientation event. A comprehensive campus-wide zero-waste educational campaign is planned for early 2015 and continuing into the 2015-2016 school year. Many offices around TRU use the simple 'Free box' strategy, by placing a cardboard box in the hallway outside their office with a "Free" sign attached to it. It's then filled with usable but unwanted items. Anyone is welcome to take what they want from them.

Aramark food services is committed to reducing the amount of food waste produced. They weigh their discarded food materials in an attempt to look for solutions for reducing waste produced during production of food materials during the school year.

Both main food preperation operations on campus--the TRU Culinary Arts program (CU), and Aramark--make a concerted effort to reduce pre-consumer food waste. CU is a professional chef training program, and so every effort is made to teach students the importnace of reducing food waste. Aramark regularly weighs all food waste in an effort to continuously look for efficiencies to try and reduce these waste.

The TRU Office of Environment and Sustainability will be conducting an audit of all campus waste streams during the school year in early 2015; with the intention of using this as a baseline with which to track its newly adopted Zero-Waste Strategy. Since compost is one of these waste streams, it will be tracked and, like the other waste streams, strategies and educational campaigns will be implemented moving forward to try and continuously reduce how much is composted.

Common Grounds, the TRU Student Union run cafe/restaurant, uses only compostable to-go coffee cups and soup bowls. These to-go items will soon be able to be grinded up with a new industrial-strength grinding machine and put in the TRU composting program.

Along with what was mentioned above regarding Common Grounds and composting, both main food preperation operations on campus (TRU Culinary Arts program (CU), and Aramark), and, to a lesser extent, the student union run cafe/restaurant (Common Grounds), all offer regular reusable china and metal cutlery for many meal and catering functions.

Common Grounds coffee shop offers a 50 cent discount to any students who bring their own reusable mugs. Culinary Arts offers a 15 percent discount for reusable mugs. Aramark, Starbucks, and Tim Horton's offers a 10 cent discount for bringing a reusable mug.

The Culinary Arts building encourages TRU community members to dine-in by charging an additional fee to take "to go" food containers.

Waste Generated Materials Composted: Composting was introduced to campus in January 2014 and data was collected for 31 weeks on how much compost was being collected. This covered the Winter semester (January to April, at 1053.41 kg) and Summer period (May to August, at 821.63 kg). As data was not collected from September to December, 2014, the Winter semester values were doubled to account for this time period. The composting value also includes campus yard clippings. Materials Recycled: This is a combination of cardboard recycling, curbside mixed recyling, electronics recycling, and scrap metal recycling. TRU has the potential to place out seventy recycling carts twice a week (each cart with a volume of 240 L), but not all carts are used each time. In order to calculate how much was recycled, an average from the casrts was taken (240x2/2). This accounts for each cart being full at least once per week, multiplied by 52 weeks. 2005 baseline figures for FTE for emplyees provided by Paul Archer, Manager, TRU HR Services.