Trash talk: making sense of our waste audit

If you saw three big piles of waste in the cafeteria on Tuesday, Oct. 27, that was our waste audit! A huge thank you to the student volunteers who participated in our recent campus waste audit! The results are officially in, and they give us a look at how we are doing as a community.

This year, our True Diversion Rate, which measures the actual amount of clean, uncontaminated material we successfully keep out of landfills, came out to 28.20%. While we are a little bit behind last year’s rate of 32%, the data shows that we have a bright path ahead.

The audit revealed that over half of the material sitting in our regular trash bins was actually perfectly recyclable or compostable! This means we have a massive opportunity to make a huge environmental impact together. A gentle reminder to our community: sorting matters. Taking just an extra second at the bins to ensure your morning coffee cup (trash) or lunch container (maybe compostable) goes into the right spot makes all the difference in keeping our streams clean.

We have all the potential to blow past our previous records. Let’s clean up our habits, support one another, and work together to make our campus greener than ever this semester!