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New bins, waste collection changes to aid UB’s zero waste efforts
The new R/O/T waste system in One World Café. Photo: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki
By DAVID J. HILL
Published January 13, 2025
Editor’s Note: This is part 2 of a two-part story (click here for part one) informing the campus community of the university’s zero waste plans.
At One World Café on the North Campus, bins labeled Recycle, Organics and Trash (R/O/T) help diners correctly sort their waste so that it gets funneled into the appropriate stream.
The R/O/T system, as it’s known, allows users to properly sort their waste in three color-coded bins: blue for recycling, green for organics and black for trash. Compostable food service containers and food waste go in the bin labeled Organics; that material is then processed into a renewable resource at Natural Upcycling, a commercial compost facility.
The bins have been a hit at One World Café — so much so that more of them will be rolled out across campus as part of the university’s zero waste and circularity efforts, which call for UB achieving a 90% waste-diversion rate by 2030.
Increasing access to R/O/T bins will ensure that everyone on campus has convenient and equal access to recycling and organics when disposing of waste.
The new bins will be set up beginning in select areas this summer, with additional locations receiving them in phases over the course of the next few years. To help the campus community prepare, UB will begin offering training videos prior to launch, as well as providing access to an online toolkit designed to educate students and employees on the R/O/T system and, specifically, their role in it.
“By integrating in the recycling of organics and having a greater presence of R/O/T on campus, we’ll be able to more efficiently and effectively ensure that campus waste is being diverted appropriately,” says Laura Hubbard, vice president for finance and administration. “It’s a vital part of our overall zero waste effort, which is grounded in a comprehensive campuswide strategy.”
A UB Sustainability waste audit conducted in fall 2023 identified opportunities for the university to improve recycling on campus, providing data that is helping to inform UB’s overall zero waste strategy. Photos: Douglas Levere
Moving away from ‘concierge’ custodial service
Another noticeable change on campus will be a shift in how materials are collected. Instead of a “concierge,” or deskside, service where custodial staff empty trash and recycling bins at employees’ individual workspaces, UB will move toward a “centralized” approach in which students and employees bring their materials to communal R/O/T stations on their floor or within their building, where they will then sort their materials into the appropriate bins. Custodial staff will then service those common areas.
“These waste-sorting stations will be the foundation to ensure everyone on campus has convenient and equal access to recycling and organics when getting rid of their waste,” says Stacey Modicamore, assistant director of building and grounds in UB Facilities.
Moving to this system will also provide two big benefits. First, it will connect individuals more directly to their waste behaviors and help reinforce what they are able to recycle and compost versus what must be landfilled.
“Ultimately, this awareness can lead to changes in what the campus community chooses to buy, while leading to a higher diversion rate of our waste,” says Erin Moscati, UB Sustainability’s zero waste manager.
According to a September 2023 waste characterization study, organics made up 19% of the total waste stream by weight of both trash and recycling, Moscati notes. And organic waste was the largest trash waste category found in buildings with dining and athletic areas. Fiber, which includes mixed paper, cardboard and paper cups, made up 33% of the total weight sorted and represented 61% of all recycling collected.
UB Sustainability and Campus Living are launching an organics collection pilot for residents of South Lake Village Apartments.
Second, centralized service will enable UB custodial colleagues to focus on higher priority needs, such as keeping common areas and restrooms clean. The current system of having custodial staff collect thousands of individual service points, many of which have very little material, multiple times a week is extremely inefficient, Moscati says. Consolidating service points, while maintaining access and ease for members of the campus community, will free up custodial time and energy.
It’s a practice that is becoming the norm at many colleges and universities around the country. A survey of indoor waste-and-diversion practices at U.S. colleges found that 44% of schools require employees to empty their own deskside bins in some, if not all, locations, and 60% observed lower contamination when deskside service was eliminated.
Centralized service is expected to begin in select areas on campus this year.
Expanding food-waste collection
This spring, to ensure compliance with New York State’s Food Donation and Food Scraps Recycling Law, UB will begin developing a plan for expanding food-waste collection.
The program, which has been in place in kitchen preparation areas across campus for the past 15 years, is public-facing only in One World Café and within residential dining halls.
Since 2020, Campus Dining and Shops has partnered with the student-run Food Recovery Network (FRN) to divert, capture and donate prepared foods to local programs serving food-insecure community members.
CDS manages the donor relations and supplies all the materials for the FRN students to collect and package unserved food from the residential dining centers and some pre-packaged items from select grab-n-go locations. The items are properly stored until transported by CDS to local agencies.
Recycling Did-You-Knows
The following items ARE recyclable:
- Pizza boxes. Yes, really! Just be sure to remove the wax paper and the pizza saver (the round white piece of plastic that looks like a table).
- Soft drink bottle caps. Screw the cap back on after the bottle is empty.
- Paper products: junk mail, paperboard, newspaper, magazines, office papers.
- Plastics: jugs and bottles with small top openings (like milk jugs and laundry detergent containers).
Pro tip: Avoid nesting items! Do not place bags of recycled items in bins. Recycling should always be loose; only trash should be bagged, with one exception: shredded paper, which must always be bagged.
The following materials are NOT recyclable on campus:
- Paper coffee cups and any other paper product designed to hold liquids or wet items.
- Plastic film. Think plastic bags, shrink wrap, “air bags” used in packaging. This material is only able to be recycled at designated drop-offs, like grocery stores,
- Any items composed of multiple materials, such as paper envelops with plastic bubble wrap lining. Many liquids like broths, protein drinks, and coconut water are packaged in fiber cartons lined with foil and plastic.
If you aren’t sure if an item can be recycled, it’s best to place it in the trash rather than ‘wish-cycling.’ This ensures that properly sorted materials aren’t sent to the landfill.
Since spring 2021, FRN reports recovering — meaning, saving — more than 67,000 pounds of food on campus.
The university also plans to roll out a program of compostable to-go food-packaging containers with Campus Dining and Shops to comply with SUNY’s policy requiring campuses to phase out single-use plastics.
“The majority of to-go food packaging used by Campus Dining and Shops is fully compostable, and we are excited to work with the university in the expansion of collection receptables once the infrastructure is in place,” says Nicole Dell, director of operations for Campus Dining and Shops. She adds that UB’s three residential dining centers use china dinnerware made in the U.S., along with silverware that is manufactured in New York State.
“We are currently doing an assessment and working with our vendors in identifying items that are considered single-use plastics in order to establish timeframes for reduction targets,” Dell adds.
CDS has been working closely with Moscati, a member of the SUNY committee tasked with identifying sources of single-use plastics on campuses, in setting reduction targets and deadlines. The phaseout, a shift away from all single-use plastics — from balloons to plastic bottles to shrink wrap — will occur over several years on all SUNY campuses.