University of Washington, Seattle
OP-18: Waste Diversion

UW Recycling has extensive recycling and composting programs in place to help the University meet its waste diversion goal of 70% by 2020. A breakdown of programs is listed below:

-Paper and Cardboard Recycling accounted for 26% (1488.55 tons) of total tons recycled in fiscal year 2012. All buildings on campus have the capability of sorting their material into three material types: mixed paper, cans/bottles and garbage. Custodial staff empties the containers and takes the material to the building’s loading dock for proper disposal. UW Recycling crew then services and empties all mixed paper toters and 2 yard cardboard dumpsters located at the loading docks. UW Recycling crew consolidates this material into a University owned rear load packer truck and hauls to our contracted fiber vendor. For office cleanouts and moves, UW Recycling also provides two 96-gallon mixed paper toters. These toters provide additional capacity for the office cleanouts and encourage people to recycle their old books, files and papers rather than throw them away.

-Cans/Bottles and Single-Stream Recycling accounted for 12% (682.66 tons) of total tons recycled in fiscal year 2012. All buildings on campus have the capability of sorting their material into three material types: mixed paper, cans/bottles and garbage. Custodial staff empties the containers and takes the material to the building’s loading dock for proper disposal. UW Recycling crew services cans/bottles toters and 2-yard dumpsters located at the academic buildings on campus and hauls it in a University owned rear load packer truck to Waste Management’s transfer station. Waste Management, one of our contracted haulers, services the single-stream compactors located at the residence halls.

-Organics Recycling accounted for 42% (2,424.46 tons) of the total tons recycled in fiscal year 2012. Organics includes landscape debris, clean wood/pallets, and food waste.

Landscape Debris Landscape debris is all organic waste generated from landscaping activities and includes grass clippings, leaves, plant trimmings, and branches. Landscape debris is collected and consolidated by University Grounds staff. Some of the material is chipped on site and used as mulch throughout campus. The landscape debris that cannot be chipped is loaded into roll-off containers located at a campus industrial yard and then hauled by the University’s composting vendor to one of their facilities, where the material is ground up, mixed with food waste, and composted.
-Clean Wood & Pallets Clean wood/pallets is wood scraps, large branches, stumps, pallets, and wood packing crates. Clean wood/pallets must be free of paint, oil, Styrofoam, and shrink wrap. Clean wood generated by the University’s Maintenance & Alterations shop during small renovation projects is placed in roll-off containers at the University’s industrial yards. Smaller containers, such as hoppers and carts, are used by other shops on campus and are emptied by Recycling & Solid Waste crew into roll-off containers at the campus industrial yards. Building staff place pallets, packing crates, and large pieces of wood at loading areas for collection by Recycling & Solid Waste crew. Many pallets are reused by University staff or salvaged by outside companies. Crates, large pieces, and all other pallets are loaded into a roll-off container and hauled by the University’s composting vendor to one of their facilities, where the material is ground up, mixed with food waste, and composted.

Food waste is all pre- and post-consumer food scraps, such as produce, meat, fish, dairy, bread, coffee grounds, and egg shells. Food waste includes all food-soiled paper, such as paper napkins, paper towels, paper plates, coffee filters, paper take-out boxes, and pizza boxes and also includes compostable serviceware items approved by the University’s composting vendor. Food waste generated in Housing and Food Services (HFS) dining facilities and coffee shops is collected in carts. HFS staff place full carts at building loading areas. Food waste generated through the office/break room composting program is transported by building or custodial staff to carts located at their building’s loading area. The University’s composting vendor services carts on site at the loading areas and hauls the material to one of their facilities, where the material is ground up, mixed with landscape debris and wood waste, and composted.

UW Recycling also has recycling programs set up for hard-to-recycle material such as Styrofoam, plastic film, and hard rigid plastics (plastics #1-7). The recycling of this material accounted for 51 tons of the total tons recycled in fiscal year 2012. The UW Recycling website has online request forms that the campus community can access and submit when they need this material picked up for recycling. UW Recycling strives to make it as easy as can be for campus customers by picking up the material, storing it on site at our yard until a large enough load is ready to be picked up by the contracted vendor.

UW Recycling's SCRAM program (student move out program) diverted 10.25 tons of material towards donation and reuse rather than being thrown away.
And, finally, this is the first year we captured tonnages of items re-sold through the UW Surplus program. In FY 2012, 822 tons of materials were diverted from the landfill through the successful re-selling efforts of UW Surplus.

We calculate our waste diversion rate based off the fiscal year calendar (July 1, 2011 through June 30, 2012). Over the past three fiscal years our waste diversion rate has toggled between 54 and 57%. In fiscal year 2012, our waste diversion rate was 57%

In fiscal year 2012 our overall recycling numbers decreased for all recycling streams except food waste and UW self-haul mixed containers. We recycled 256 tons of mixed containers and 1285 tons of food waste. However, the total amount of material landfilled was about the same (4934 tons in FY 2012 vs. 4901 tons in FY 2011).

What this shows is that we are not generating more garbage which is pretty miraculous considering our campus is growing. Instead we are recycling less high volume materials such as paper and cardboard, Construction & Demolition debris (C&D), carpet , concrete, and scrap metal.

It is challenging to pinpoint the true reason for the steady reporting of our waste diversion numbers or what is driving the decrease in some recycling streams versus others, especially when the overall amount of garbage we are generating is staying the same. Perhaps we can attribute the decline to overall change in consumer behavior (less paper usage) or perhaps there was less renovation occurring on campus. For example, fewer in-house renovation projects completed by UW Maintenance & Alterations could affect our C&D and scrap metal recycling rates, whereas paper usage could be declining due in large part to the efforts of the UW’s Paper Conservation Project team, thus affecting the overall amount of paper being recycled.

UW Recycling monitors the numbers each quarter and tries to identify trends or causes for the fluctuations. This year we have also developed an annual program plan centered around three strategies that will hopefully drive waste diversion. The strategies include development of a comprehensive recycling educational campaign, increasing public area composting options in buildings and exterior areas, and piloting a paper towel composting program.