Wartburg College
OP-17: Waste Reduction

The Sustainability Office, with the support of the Operations and Maintenance Department’s leadership and the endorsement of the Energy and Environmental Sustainability Initiative, asked the college administration to adopt and support the following waste reduction goals. • 30% diversion by June 1, 2015 • 65% diversion by June 1, 2018 • 80% diversion by June 1, 2020 The goals were adopted in a cabinet meeting on December 16, 2013, and implementation has begun. From the Waste Management Proposal of Nov. 2013 Recommendation #1 - Install comprehensive, campus-wide access to waste stations. Currently, we have 40 waste stations across campus in public areas. For ease of access, it is our recommendation that a station be accessible with 100 feet of any workspace on campus. To accomplish this, we will need to add 26 stations. All these stations would include single-stream recycling. Recommendation #2 – Remove waste containers from lecture classrooms. Across campus we have 69 classrooms, each including a waste collection container. A majority of the time, classrooms are not sources of waste generation, the exception being laboratory spaces. With waste stations close to every space on campus, these will become unnecessary. Removing the bins will save money from the cost of liners. These containers will be reused to support recommendation #4. Recommendation #3 – Implement a user-managed waste collection. We will have a system that gives preference to waste diversion by installing a smaller waste receptacle, called a side-saddle, to the side of the existing office containers. Those containers will be relabeled to recycling. Management of these containers will be placed in the user’s hands, by asking all staff to take their waste, landfill and recycling, to the central waste stations. This will increase diversion. Recommendation #4 – Adopt a campus-wide “twin the bin” program. Across campus, adoption of a program which leaves no trash can standing alone will ensure users always have a better option. Trash cans standing alone have displayed a higher inclusion of recyclable material.