Nearly all recyclable items can now be placed in one bin for recycling throughout the Danforth, West, North and South campuses.
This change from the previous recycling system of separate bins began in January and comes in time for the 2010 RecycleMania competition.
Those on most WUSTL campuses now will see only waste bins labeled “Recycling” or “Landfill.” Comingled recyclable items will be sorted off-campus by a vendor.
The university hopes this new, simpler way to recycle waste will improve recycling in general. As an important goal of its sustainability plan, the university is working to drastically increase the amount of waste it diverts from landfills. The university and its vendors believe the new single-stream recycling program will accomplish that goal.
Additionally, the university hopes to improve its standing in RecycleMania, which began the 2010 competition Jan. 17.
RecycleMania is an annual competition administered by the National Recycling Coalition. It pits WUSTL against other U.S. and Canadian colleges and universities to see which campus can prevent the most materials from being buried in a landfill.
Though the RecycleMania competition is temporary — it last 10 weeks and ends March 27 — the new single-stream recycling bins are a permanent addition to campus.
“Single-stream recycling programs nationwide have proven to dramatically increase recycling rates,” said Matt Malten, assistant vice chancellor for sustainability. “We’re very pleased that we were able to work with our vendors to develop this single-stream program for Washington University. We believe this will make recycling more easy to do for our campus community and make recycling more efficient and cost effective.”
While the campus encourages recycling at all times, all faculty, staff and students are strongly encouraged to reduce, reuse and recycle during RecycleMania to re-emphasize the importance of reducing landfill waste and to help WUSTL defeat fellow schools.
“Washington University has participated in RecycleMania since 2003, and we have continually improved our ranking each year,” Malten said. “Although RecycleMania is a friendly competition, it provides us a great opportunity to refocus and rededicate ourselves to adopting behaviors that reduce, reuse and recycle our materials.”
Last year, Washington University recycled 428,663 pounds of waste to rank No. 28 out of 293 schools — among the top 10 percent — in the annual RecycleMania contest’s Gorilla category.
The university hopes to improve on its top 10 percent performance in 2010 but is focused on long-term success.
“RecycleMania is especially timely this year,” Malten said. “It provides us an opportunity to test and refine the efficiency and effectiveness of our new single-stream program. And it also allows us to really emphasize the key longer term goal of waste minimization and diversion that we are striving for in our sustainability strategic plan.”
The university’s Office of Sustainability monitors and submits WUSTL’s recycling information to RecycleMania administrators.
Each week, standings are posted online to help motivate campuses to continue recycling. Awards are given to the schools that recycle the greatest overall amount of recyclables (Gorilla), the greatest percentage of their overall waste (Grand Champion) and greatest amount of recyclables per person (Per Capita Classic). Because of WUSTL’s move to single-stream recycling, the university no longer will participate in the targeted materials — such as food waste, paper and cardboard — categories.
When WUSTL first participated in RecycleMania in 2003, the contest’s third year, the university ranked last among eight competing schools in the Per Capita award, which measures the amount of recycled goods per person. WUSTL has dramatically improved its standing since then, finishing a respectable No. 49 of 180 schools (2008) and No. 62 of 293 schools (2009) in the Per Capita category the past two years.
Last year, more than 70 million pounds of waste were recycled through RecycleMania.
For more information about single-stream recycling on campus or to track WUSTL’s weekly standings in the RecycleMania competition, visit wustl.edu/sustain.