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Fact Sheets & Summaries > Waste Prevention > [Making Less Garbage on Campus: A Hands-On Guide]

Making Less Garbage on Campus: A Hands-On Guide

The problem: Too much waste

Residents of the United States threw away 207 million tons of garbage in 1993. Local governments spend more than $30 billion each year to manage solid waste, but this burden falls not only on taxpayers. It affects the environment, too. Beyond the problem of finding places to dump or burn trash, waste is often the visible result of using natural resources inefficiently, as many business, government, and environmental leaders now recognize.

 

The solution: Waste prevention

A ton of waste that's not created is a ton of waste that doesn't have to be managed. Through waste prevention, it's possible to provide a service or use a product in a way that takes a lighter toll on the environment. Preventing waste almost always leads to savings, too, on purchases and operations as well as on waste management and disposal.

 

Why focus on college campuses?

College campuses are like small cities or large businesses: they feed and house people, operate offices and facilities, and maintain grounds - using lots of resources and generating waste. In 1992, the 14.5 million students enrolled in colleges and universities across the United States generated roughly 3.7 million tons of waste, or about 2 percent of the US solid waste stream.

But the reasons for stressing waste prevention at colleges and universities go far beyond targeting their contribution to the nation's waste burden. Because of their educational mission, high community visibility, and active involvement in research, development, and new technologies, colleges and universities have the potential to serve as models of waste prevention for their communities as well as for students, faculty, and alumni.

 

Creating campus waste prevention programs

Making Less Garbage on Campus: A Hands-on Guide includes dozens of case studies of waste prevention techniques currently in use on US college campuses, as well as an operations and procurement checklist and a step-by-step guide to creating a campus waste prevention program. The report shows students, faculty, and administrators how to:

• conduct an audit to target waste prevention opportunities
  
• assess current procurement practices and look for opportunities to purchase longer-lasting, repairable, reusable, and less-toxic products
  
• create guidelines for use and reuse of goods and materials, such as furniture and office equipment
  
• publicize and promote waste prevention on campus
  
• prevent waste in campus offices - for example, through double-sided photocopying, e-mail, posting and routing documents electronically, and two-way envelopes
  
• prevent waste by reducing the quantities of unwanted mail, catalogues, and publications that arrive on campus
  
• prevent landscaping waste through composting and "leave-it-on-the-lawn" programs
  
• prevent food services waste - for example, by donating surplus food, composting food scraps, and adopting reusable dinnerware and refillable bottles
  
• encourage campus reuse through exchange centers for office supplies, building materials, clothing, and furniture