University of Calgary

Reducing campus waste

Feb. 2, 2009

Erase the Waste

Trevor Richards wants to see everyone on campus reduce their waste. / Photo: Ken Bendiktsen

Trevor Richards wants to see everyone on campus reduce their waste even just a little bit.
/ Photo: Ken Bendiktsen

How much is 200 grams? In the daily life of a university student or staff member, it adds up to about six apple cores, or eight paper coffee cups, or 45 sheets of paper. It doesn’t sound like much, but if every person on campus reduced their garbage production by that much in one week, it would keep six tonnes of garbage out of Calgary’s landfills each week. That, in turn, would cut the U of C’s waste disposal bill by more than $1,000 a month.

This is the goal of the campus-wide Erase the Waste campaign, which kicks off today.

“We want to show that collectively, as such a large institution, small individual acts can make a big difference,” says Trevor Richards, project coordinator for the Office of Sustainability. “If everyone on campus reduced their waste by just 200g a week, together we could reduce the amount of waste we send to the landfill by the size of a large elephant every week,”

Running until Feb. 20, Erase the Waste features a campus-wide challenge to encourage everyone on campus to reduce their waste 200 grams per week. Waste production will be closely monitored by U of C maintenance staff and results reported after Feb. 14.

To make the waste-reduction challenge even easier, more than 200 new recycling bins for beverage containers and paper will be distributed around campus and the first campus-wide composting program will be launched with 17 new multi-purpose collection bins that will include organic waste collection. Approximately 36 per cent, or 600 tonnes, of the waste the university sends to the landfill each year is made up of organic material.

Throughout the campaign, the Office of Sustainability is also offering free workshops for university staff and faculty on sustainable procurement, recycling and ways to reduce waste in the office. For more information or to book a workshop for your department, visit www.ucalgary.ca/sustainability.