UW RECYCLING ANNUAL REPORT 2020 BUILDING SERVICES DEPARTMENT UW RECYCLING MISSION STATEMENT UW RECYCLING UW Recycling provides innovative recycling, composting and waste reduction solutions with ANNUAL REPORT - FISCAL YEAR 2020 unmatched passion for the health of our campus and our planet. BUILDING SERVICES DEPARTMENT PROGRAM OVERVIEW KEY POINTS • 61% diversion rate CONTENTS • Saved more than $1.1 million by recycling, composting and reusing • Net reduction of 8,972 tons of greenhouse gas emissions Mission & Overview .......................................................1 Fiscal Year Accomplishments ...............................................2 INTRODUCTION The UW Recycling Fiscal Year 2020 Annual Report provides an overview of the University of Highlight: New Bins on Campus. 3 Washington’s campus recycling and solid waste program in Seattle from July 1, 2019 through Diversion Rate. .4 June 30, 2020. COVID-19 pandemic Impact on the UW’s Waste ...............................7 DIVERSION RATE Net Avoided Disposal Cost .................................................8 70% Highlight: Waste Diversion & Reduction Student Assistant ......................9 66% 63% 64% 61% 61% 61% 61% 58% Carbon Footprint ........................................................10 60% 57% 57% 55% Waste Streams ..........................................................12 50% Small Steps to Zero Waste Social Media Campaign ...........................15 Highlight: Outreach & Education ...........................................16 40% Collection Services .......................................................18 30% Program Costs & Operations ..............................................20 Looking Ahead: Fiscal Year 2021 Priorities. 22 20% UW Recycling Staff .......................................................24 13% 10% 0% FY89 FY10 FY11 FY12 FY13 FY14 FY15 FY16 FY17 FY18 FY19 FY20 2020 ANNUAL REPORT 1 FISCAL YEAR (FY) 2020 ACCOMPLISHMENTS HIGHLIGHT: NEW BINS ON CAMPUS Each year, UW Recycling monitors its program’s success and develops new initiatives to help During fiscal year 2020, UW Recycling focused on diverting food and compostable material from drive waste diversion efforts. During fiscal year 2020, UW Recycling: the landfill and recycling by increasing compost capacity and accessibility on campus. While compost is available across campus, the team identified buildings with insufficient compost bins • Increased compost capacity and standardized recycling in 4 high-traffic buildings and and set out to improve those bins. 11 smaller buildings on campus. INSTALLING MAX-R PUBLIC AREA STATIONS • Diverted over 8.87 tons of material from the landfill through SCRAM, our student The biggest changes were made to buildings with heavy foot traffic including Suzzallo Library, move-out program. Allen Library, Mary Gates Hall and Kane Hall. For these buildings, UW Recycling invested in • Taught four separate compost overview lab sessions for the Food Systems: Harvest to Max-R waste stations, which are easy for community members to locate, understand and utilize Health (NUTR302) course, offering hands-on learning opportunities to over 100 students. due to their distinct size and signage accessibility. • Connected with over 6,763 staff, faculty, students and visitors throughoutreach events These containers hold a high volume of recycling and compost material and a lower amount on campus: of garbage material than the UW’s standard public area bins. Max-R stations have three waste • 1,568 at in-person events streams (landfill, recycling, and compost), easy-to-see symbols and colors, special opening • 4,815 at Husky Football games shapes for each waste stream and built-in sorting sign displays. The containers are also designed • 380 at virtual events to be safely accessible for custodial staff and easy to clean. • Educated second grade students about composting and recycling at the CONVERTING CURRENT BINS TO NEW STANDARDS UW Summer Youth Program. UW Recycling staff also updated lower traffic buildings including: • Hosted social media campaigns promoting International Compost Awareness Week and • Anderson Hall • Gerberding Hall “Small Steps to Zero Waste”, which focused on tips for lowering personal waste. • Art Building • Hutchinson Hall • Hired two student positions: a Waste Diversion Assistant and a Waste Diversion • Atmospheric Sciences Building • Molecular Engineering & Reduction Assistant. • Bank of America Executive Building and Sciences Building • Bloedel Hall • Music Building • The Burke Museum • Winkenwerder Hall • Ceramic & Metal Arts Building In these instances, the UW Recycling team re-labeled and converted public area bins to “landfill, recycling and compost” bins. These labels replaced the old “mixed paper/cans & bottles” labels. With updated bins and labels, these areas now meet the UW waste infrastructure standards and provide better access to compost and recycling. The team often refurbishes and reuses older bins to reduce costs and waste. Improving compost capacity is a key component to the University’s Sustainability Action Plan Target IX. This target aims to decrease landfilled waste by 10 percent by 2025. By updating bins on campus, UW Recycling improves accessibility for people to find bins and sort items like compost appropriately. Max-R station after the Suzzallo Library install Januray 13, 2020 2 UW Recycling 2020 ANNUAL REPORT 3 DIVERSION RATE: 61% ANNUAL DIVERTED & LANDFILLED TONNAGE The diversion rate is one indicator of how successful the University of Washington is in keeping 9,000 65.5% materials out of the landfill. It is used to measure how the institution is doing compared to 63.6% 62.5% previous years, other higher education institutions, and the City of Seattle. The diversion rate 60.5% 60.9% 61.2% 60.5% 8,000 58.0% is calculated by dividing the total tons of material diverted from the landfill by the total tons of 56.5% 56.7% 57.0% waste generated by the UW’s campus in Seattle.* 7,000 While the University made great strides to prevent material from going to the landfill by 6,000 recycling, reselling and composting, the UW did not meet its goal of 70% waste diversion by 2020. UW Recycling monitors the waste diversion numbers each quarter and tries to identify 5,000 Tons trends or causes for any fluctuations. 8,569 7,935 7,583 7,390 7,360 Diverted and landfilled waste dropped 2020 DIVERTED & 4,000 7,351 6,726 6,621 6,613 6,547 significantly from March through June due LANDFILLED TONNAGE 6,417 3,000 5,183 4,934 to limited operations on campus. 4,901 4,812 4,802 4,790 4,739 4,541 4,504 4,406 4,318 RATE CALCULATION 2,000 The diversion rate for fiscal year 2020 was 1,000 61%. This is consistent with 61% in fiscal FY10 FY11 FY12 FY13 FY14 FY15 FY16 FY17 FY18 FY19 FY20 4,318 Diverted years 2018 and 2019. This year the total Diverted Landfilled Diversion Rate Landfilled amount of material recycled decreased by 6,613 970 tons and the total amount of material NEW DECADE - NEW GOAL landfilled decreased by 494 tons. Diversion rates are a great tool to compare similar programs as well as progress over time, however it doesn’t provide a full picture. During the creation of the new UW Sustainability Action ENSURING ACCURACY Plan, UW Recycling created a new campus-wide target: 10% Less Landfilled Waste by 2025. The In 2015, UW Recycling took the initiative to goal is based on Fiscal Year 2019’s landfill generation. The University will need to discard less conduct a route audit with its food waste collection vendor, Cedar Grove, in order to determine than 4,330 tons to meet this new goal. This is nearly one million pounds less each year! updated weight estimates for compostable materials being collected from campus. Compostable material has become lighter over the years and now consists of more lightweight or fluffy The UW can achieve this goal by moving compostable plastic and paper packaging. As a result of the adjustment, the waste diversion for compostable and recyclable material out the following fiscal years are lower than numbers reported in fiscal year 2015. of the landfill and into the correct waste streams. Less wasteful practices will also help our landfill generation decrease. UW Recycling is committed to reducing the amount of material sent to the landfill and will focus on these options in the coming years. *Details on what materials are included in this calculation can be found in the Waste Streams section on page 12. 4 UW Recycling 2020 ANNUAL REPORT 5 COVID-19 PANDEMIC IMPACT ON THE UW’S WASTE In March 2020, UW pivoted to primarily remote learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In-person events and activities were canceled or transitioned to a virtual environment. On-campus residents were reduced by about 80% over several months. The pandemic also caused sporting event cancelations, limited food service and the temporary closure of the UW Surplus store. In this transition, a significant amount of waste was reduced. QUARTERLY DIVERTED & LANDFILLED TONNAGE 2,500 0.7 2,500 63% 64% 0.7 62% 61% 61% 62% 62% 59% 63% 60% 59% 64% 61% 62% 61% 61% 62% 62% 59% 60% 59% 61% 0.6 0.6 2,000 52% 2,000 52% 0.5 0.5 1,500 1,500 0.4 0.4 Tons 0.3 1,000 0.3 2,087 1,000 2,068 1,951 2,087 2,068 1,895 1,881 1,864 1,828 1,818 1,795 1,951 1,768 1,750 1,895 1,881 1,864 1,828 1,818 1,795 1,768 0.2 1,750 1,329 0.2 1,281 1,208 1,195 1,189 1,186 1,180 1,174 500 1,126 1,095 1,094 1,329 1,281 880 1,208 1,195 1,189 1,186 1,180 811 1,174 0.1 500 1,126 1,095 1,094 880 811 0.1 0 0 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 0 0 Diverted Landfill Diversion Rate Q1 Q2 Q32018 Q4 Q1 Q2 2019 Q3 Q4 Q1 2020Q2 Q3 Q4 Diverted Landfill Diversion Rate Quarter 4 or spring quarter (April - June) is usually a quarter with a high amount of landfilled tonnage.