Recycling, Compost & Waste

Late last month, the city of Seattle adopted a new recycling program to provide more recycling options for the city’s residents.

The change means Seattle residents can now recycle more paper, plastic and metal items, which includes cups, deli trays, plastic plant pots and aluminum foil. Residents can also recycle glass bottles and jars together.

UW Housing and Food Services (HFS), however, has yet to implement these changes, which could cause confusion when it comes to campus recycling.

From paper collection to waste audits, the “R” word is a big one at North American schools of higher learning. Read more about what the University of Washington is doing with their recycling and sustainability practices.

Just last month, UW’s Housing and Food Services (HFS) representatives proudly added a compostable soda cup to their line of sustainable dining products.

For years, Seattle has operated an aggressive curbside recycling program to reduce the need for expensive landfill space. Now the city seeks to despoil less of the atmosphere by converting its garbage-truck fleet from diesel to compressed natural gas (CNG) under new hauling contracts starting March 30.

Not long ago, a Facilities Services shop that handles flooring diverted its first dumpster-full of old carpet from a dead end in the landfill to a new life as recycled carpet. After nearly a year of hard work on the part of Maintenance Mechanic Lead Jackie Harris, staff in the shop who install flooring, and Eric Johnson from Transportation Services, the carpet will be recycled into new carpet and other building materials through a company in Tacoma called Recovery 1.

University of Washington Housing and Food Services was recognized as Recycler of the Year for overcoming significant barriers to expand residence hall recycling. Assisted by a residence hall student organization, SEED (Students Expressing Environmental Determination), HFS created a program for composting post-consumer food in dining halls and other food outlets.

The UW is the pilot site for the first compostable paper cup designed specifically for soft drinks.
The cup, developed for Coca-Cola fountain drinks, was created by International Paper in cooperation with the UW and Cedar Grove Composting. With the addition of the compostable cup, there is a potential that 150,000 fewer cups will go to landfills annually, and the University's impact on the environment will be lessened.

Going “green” with compostable products has been a goal for the UW’s Housing and Food Services (HFS) for two years now.

The compostable Coca-Cola soft drink ecotainer, unveiled in front of spectators in the Husky Den yesterday morning, is another part of the goal. It is being labeled the final piece in the HFS line of environmentally friendly utensils and food containers that have been widely publicized during the past year. A biodegradable lid is still being developed.

A bus running on vegetable oil was parked near By George Café last week as part of the national BioTour, and a bluegrass band performed on top of the bus by plugging their amps into its solar panels.

The UW chapter of the Washington Student Public Interest Research Group (WashPIRG) booked the bus for a tour stop and invited the student band Old Technology to play a concert on top of it. Though WashPIRG members were a majority of the audience, the curiosity turned more than a few heads and attracted Tukwila School District students who were touring the campus.

If saving trees isn't enough to get you to stop using plastic bags, the fact that there is a toxic plastic gathering — twice the size of Texas in the Pacific Ocean — should probably do the trick. This isn't just about saving the environment. This is about saving ourselves.