Arizona State University has set a goal to reach a 90% rate of diverting recyclable materials from landfills. All campuses, except for one, are far below the national average of diversion.
Overall, ASU’s diversion rate is 41.8%, which is above the national average of 35.2% and the city of Phoenix’s 36%.
Out of all four campuses, the downtown Phoenix campus has the lowest diversion rate.
According to ASU’s 2019 Zero Waste Annual Report, the campus’ landfill rate is 71.8% and diversion rate is 28.2%. The campus with the lowest landfill and highest diversion rate is the West campus, with a 32.4% landfill rate and a 67.6% diversion rate.
According to the report, the downtown campus’ waste stream is comprised mostly of classroom, dorm room and dining hall waste.
Alana Levine, director of ASU’s Zero Waste and Ground Services in Facilities Management, said the campus’ location presents a challenge when it comes to recycling.
“There are a lot of people in the downtown area that utilize our facilities that are not necessarily a student, faculty member or staff member. There’s a lot of bins that are on very public sidewalks, unlike the other campuses where these programs run,” Levine said. “You’ll find that for any urban campus that’s operating in a very dense urban area.”
According to the report, ASU has reduced the amount of waste it produces by 14% since 2008.
Dr. Olivia Elias announced to her Spanish class at the beginning of the fall semester that she was cutting back on printed materials.
Every summer, Elias works at Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey in California. She said the community is very conscious about the amount of waste they produce.
“Ninety percent of the students are very conscious about the environment and throwing away trash,” she said. “So, every summer I come back and I’m like, ‘Wow, I’m not being conscious enough with the environment.’”
She said the entire language department at ASU is making efforts to reduce the amount of paper they print for their classes.
“Our director said ‘I’m going to challenge you to see how much less paper you use in your classroom,’ so instead of making photocopies and printing, I’m going to have it digitally and I’ll just project it to students,” she said.
Elias hasn’t gone completely digital yet, but has made an effort to reduce printing. With the new year approaching, she’s made a goal to reach 100%.
“I want to try to not print anything, to have everything 100% digitally – just project it to the students. It’s going to be hard. For years I made photocopies because I know students like to write on them,” she said.
Levine said one of the biggest challenges that the zero-waste team has is not everyone in the community fully participating in either reducing waste, reusing or recycling.
“Really there is only a certain amount of things that we can do, like buying bins and putting labels on bins, running some educational campaigns, doing training, running a lot of marketing campaigns. But really it comes down to people making individual choices,” she said.
Unlike Elias, ASU mathematics instructor Johrdyn Lorden doesn’t feel as guilty about printing out paper. However, she does think about how much of it that she’s printing out.
“I don’t feel as guilty about paper as some of the other things, because I know it’s more easily recyclable than other things, and I do know that ASU has a lot of receptacles for recycling paper,” Lorden said.
In her department, a senior lecturer took the amount of wasted paper into her own hands and turned it into something reusable.
“Dr. Apple (Irene) Bloom, she has a box in the printer room, where if you have a piece of paper that is only used on one side, she wants you to put your paper in there and she makes (reusable notepads),” Lorden said. “She has a sign in the printer room that says ‘recycle before you recycle.’ Then she gives them back to the faculty.”
Lorden is among the many who uses the notepads and is pleased that Dr. Bloom did something to make a difference.
Kylie Cochrane, the vice president of policy for the downtown campus undergraduate student government, said that the student government is making efforts to create a more sustainable community by working with ASU’s catering company, Aramark.
“We are working on collaborating with Aramark and all the dining halls on campus, as well as a nutritionist, to create awareness about the current practices in place to reuse and recycle materials to ultimately create a more sustainable community,” Cochrane said.
She said the student government is trying to spread awareness of systems already in place, such as the ability to use to-go containers to take home food.
She believes there are going to be more sustainability changes on the campus when the new dorm building and dining hall open.
“I wouldn’t be surprised in the next two years if (more sustainable programs) roll out because there is going to be a new dining hall. And I know they are trying to use some new practices there as well to maybe amend the problem,” she said.
She said the student government is trying to encourage more students to eat at the dining hall instead of other marketplaces. With the dining hall practice of using washable plates, utensils and linens, it provides a more sustainable alternative to normal fast food practices of disposable napkins, utensils and food packaging.
Contact the reporter at Jpbeltra@asu.edu.
