University of Mount Union
OP-23: Waste Diversion

The University of Mount Union conducts several outreach efforts that encourage the reduction of waste, reusing materials, and minimizing waste. These programs include: Game Day Challenge Football, Trayless Dining Hall Food Waste Audits, RecycleMania (Residence Hall RecycleMania Competition), and Trash to Treasure Move-out Sale. MOVE OUT: Trash to Treasure Sale 2014 marks the 6th year Mount Union has conducted "Trash to Treasure", a move-out donation and sale that benefits the United Way of Greater Stark County. On average every year, about $1,000 is donated from items students donate to the sale during move out time. GAME DAY CHALLENGE Mount Union is a participant in RecycleMania, an international waste minimization and recycling competition and Game Day Challenge Football, a national waste and recycling competition. 2014 marks the 7th consecutive year Mount Union has been a participant in RecycleMania and has participated in Game Day Challenge for at least 2 years. RECYCLEMANIA "RecycleMania is a friendly competition and benchmarking tool for college and university recycling programs to promote waste reduction activities to their campus communities. Over an 8-week period each spring, colleges across the United States and Canada report the amount of recycling and trash collected each week and are in turn ranked in various categories based on who recycles the most on a per capita basis, as well as which schools have the best recycling rate as a percentage of total waste and which schools generate the least amount of combined trash and recycling. With each week’s updated ranking, participating schools follow their performance against other colleges and use the results to rally their campus to reduce and recycle more."-recyclemaniacs.org "The GameDay Recycling Challenge is a friendly competition for colleges and universities to promote waste reduction at their football games. During the challenge, colleges and universities implement waste reduction programs during home football games. Schools track and report waste reductions and disposal data that is used to rank the schools.The competition is run by a partnership of the College and University Recycling Coalition (CURC), RecycleMania, Keep America Beautiful (KAB) and EPA’s WasteWise program."-gamedaychallenge.org In 2013-14 Mount Union conducted food waste audits of post-consumer food waste on Oct. 23, 2013, and a trayless post-consumer food waste audit in April 11, 2014. University of Mount Union conducted a Food Waste Analysis. The EV 350Q Spring 2012 class conducted: A Case Study on Food Waste and Composting Options at the University of Mount Union. Part of the study included a week long waste audit of post-consumer food waste in our campus dining hall.

The Regula Center for Public Service holds food drives thoughout the year. Other departments on campus hold periodic food drives that are donated to local charities, organizations including the Alliance Food Pantry. The Regula Center for Public Service also coordinates a Community-wide Thanksgiving Dinner with donations from the University of Mount Union staff, faculty and students, and local area businesses.The 2013-14 Community Thanksgiving Dinner served over 500 meals.

We do not have a food waste compost program.

We do not have a food waste compost program.