The results are in and separating paper and plastic from everyday garbage has landed occupants of the Medical Sciences Building at the top of The University of Western Ontario’s Recycling Challenge.
Physical Plant & Capital Planning Services partnered with student group, EnviroWestern, to perform random waste audits of buildings across campus throughout the academic year. From faculty buildings to residences, the audits revealed overall faculty, staff and students are throwing an average of more than 21 per cent of their recyclables into the trash.
By comparison, an audit of the Medical Sciences Building produced only 2.8 per cent recyclable materials, making it the best building on campus for recycling.
The challenge was sparked by EnviroWestern’s 2008 waste audit, which indicated the university has slightly relapsed in its recycling habits. In order to address this, Western has made recycling a top priority.
“We noticed there was a bit of a bump last year in which recycling may be taking a back seat for some reason, so we wanted to increase awareness around that,” says Brandon Watson, Communications Officer for Physical Plant.
As part of the campaign to reduce the amount of recyclables making its way into garbage bins, Hospitality Services rolled out sustainability central depots at select on-campus eateries, EnviroWestern promoted its mug program and Physical Plant’s waste management team deployed more recycling bins across the university.
To complement the awareness campaign, Physical Plant challenged the campus community to clean up its garbage by sorting out recyclable materials. Each month, about half a dozen buildings were randomly audited to see how it lived up to the challenge. The building with the smallest ratio of recyclables to waste in its trash bins was declared the monthly champion.
“It was a good way for people to take some ownership and maybe bring greater awareness to their own recycling habits,” says Watson. Although zero recyclables is ideal, the results from the Medical Sciences Building were “almost as good as it gets.”
Pointing to the efforts of those in Medical Sciences to improve sustainability, a group of students from the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry were recently awarded a Western Green Award by Physical Plant for their work on the Quadrangle Beautification Project, which transformed a small courtyard between the Don Rix Clinical Skills Learning Building and the Medical Sciences Building.
“It seems like there is a green movement afoot in the Schulich area of campus,” he says. “They seem to be doing very well.”
Although Perth Hall was among the top three buildings, Watson was surprised three residences – Alumni House, Elgin and Essex – were at the bottom of the recycling challenge list.
“We always figured residences would be doing better at this sort of thing. If you think of it as their home, typically people do better at their own home then when they are at their place of business because there is that ownership factor.”
Physical Plant plans to recognize the work of the occupants of the Medical Sciences Building, as well as target awareness campaigns over the next year in buildings that had a higher ratio of recyclables in the garbage, including residences.
One of the main hurdles in the recycling challenge has been spreading the word about what counts as recyclables, says Watson. The City of London has different criteria for its paper, plastic and metal recyclables, which causes some confusion on campus. Physical Plant is looking to make Western’s program more synonymous with the city’s.
Accountability has also been flagged as an issue. When people are on campus, they do not feel the same responsibility to recycle as they do at home, he says.
“Awareness and improved infrastructure – by that I mean as many bins as we can possibly provide – might help curb that habit a little bit.
“If we can bring awareness to it, it can help change people’s opinions,” Watson adds. “If they can see the results for themselves, they can make changes in their habits.”
To see the complete results of the recycling challenge visit www.uwo.ca/ppd/chart/chart.html.