Greening Wurster Hall Hanna Miller, Waste Audits & Sarah Zou, SPROUTS (Student Projects Redefining Our University's Trash, Sustainably)

In 2012, Wurster Hall received a grant from The Green Initiative Fund to pilot an indoor building standard for landfill, recycling, and compost bins. In working with bin manufacturers, specific units were designed to be ergonomic, visually appealing, and functional. In order to provide metrics on the effectiveness of the new bins, three waste audits have been conducted: Pre-Implementat ion audit (October 2012), Mid-Implementation audit (May 2013), and Post-Implementation audit (February 2014).

The waste audits proved that additional education and outreach is required to further decrease the Wurster Hall landfill waste stream. This outreach will be coordinated by the SPROUTS team who plans on designing and incorporating customized signage with commonly thrown away items that could be composted or recycled- namely, items sold in Ramona’s and materials that architecture students use. After these are put in place, SPROUTS and CRRS staff will present these changes to staff and studio students who frequent the building, in order to ensure clarity and comprehensibility.

Cardboard 2%

Compostable Plastics

2% Recyclable Plastics

2% Mixed Paper 3%

Metal and Glass 4%

Non-recyclable Plastics

9%

Landfill 27%

Compost 51%

For the three waste audits, the landfill waste from these buildings was collected for three days each and sorted into the following categories: Cardboard, Metal and Glass, Mixed Paper, Landfill, Compost, and All Plastics. The All Plastics category was broken down into various sub-categories including recyclable plastics, non-recyclable plastics, and compostable plastics. The chart shows what the landfill waste stream looked like for the post-implementation waste audit. Even though composting was installed, it was still 51% of the landfill waste stream by weight.

The greatest variation between the waste audits was the total amount of waste generated. This is why it is important to look at the percent compositions along with the weights for each category. The fact that the percentage of compost in the landfill waste stream stayed relatively constant means that more needs to be done in Wurster Hall than simply changing the bin system. However, the decrease in waste generated does show that the new bin systems are helping divert some waste from landfill.

Wurster Hall Post-Implementation Waste Stream Results

Comparisons

Future

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Pre-Implementation Mid-Implementation Post-Implementation

Wurster Hall Waste Streams

Cardboard Metal and Glass Mixed Paper Landfill All Plastic Compost