Recycling, Compost & Waste

Students at the University of Washington have teamed up on a startup that promises to turn slash piles of forest refuse into biochar, a crumbly charcoal-like product for farmers that helps their soil hold water and nutrients. Biochar is not technically a fertilizer, but often improves yield for farmers.

A few UW trucks may soon be leaving an aromatic trail of french fries and fried chicken in their wake if a few sustainably minded students get their way.

The Biodiesel Cooperative, led by a group of engineering students, is looking to convert a few thousand gallons of wasted cooking oil into biodiesel that could be used on campus in place of traditional fuel.

The UW has banned it, but the stuff worms its way onto campus packed in boxes. It’s ubiquitous Styrofoam (the common name for foamed polystyrene), which has permeated the world as a low-cost, lightweight material with a wide array of uses. But the material is toxic and it never goes away.

That's why UW Recycling started a Styrofoam recycling program a year ago that is now being expanded.

According to the data of one our partners IMN – Intra Mail Net, our Junk & Misaddressed Mail Reduction Initiatives for the University of Washington so far for 2011 have reduced or saved the following:

Student Housing Phase 1 Project construction team went paperless - saving 147 trees! View more statistics in the article.

In alignment with UW’s 2Y2D strategic direction, Student Fiscal Services is making a major commitment to sustainable business practices by eliminating paper reports produced by the Student Database (SDB).

Working in conjunction with UWIT and our process partners, we have already converted many reports to PDF format and have stored them on a network drive.  This has drastically reduced the number of daily SDB reports being printed – saving a substantial number of trees in the process.
 

Three individuals and two groups were honored at the UW Earth Day celebration as winners of the second annual Husky Green Award. The award, sponsored by the Environmental Stewardship Advisory Committee, recognizes those who have shown leadership, initiative and dedication to environmental stewardship and sustainability at the University.

Individual winners are:

Trash-In 2011 will take place on April 13 at the Bryants Building Annex. Recycling & Solid Waste will receive one day’s worth of trash from eight designated campus buildings and sort it into categories currently collected on campus. Please share your availability to volunteer, or email us at recycle@uw.edu for more information. Let’s get trashy!

With help from its supplier, the University of Washington reduced operating costs while increasing its sustainability.

As colleges and universities around the United States reduce operating budgets, their facility managers are searching for ways to do more with less.

Increasingly, higher education custodial directors are turning to core suppliers to help them control spending on cleaning and maintenance supplies.

Thirty thousand people shuffle in and out of the UW’s Housing and Food Services’ (HFS) many dining facilities each day, likely unaware of where their food waste ends up after it’s dropped into the compost bin.

Once an old apple core or pizza slice leaves someone’s hands, it’s picked up by a truck from Cedar Grove, self-proclaimed as “Pacific Northwest’s leading organic recycling company,” which for the last several years has been tasked with finding a place for all of the UW’s food waste.