Prairie Research Institute Illinois Sustainable Technology Center

Quad Recycling Containers

Client

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Sector

Higher Education

Location

Champaign-Urbana, IL

Services

Fostering Sustainable Behavior, Implementation Assistance, Waste Characterization Study, Waste Management

Background

The Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) is the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s roadmap to reducing the campus carbon footprint and achieving carbon neutrality. Since iCAP’s development, ISTC’s Technical Assistance Program (TAP) has worked with the university’s Facilities and Services (F&S) on multiple projects to meet a 45% campus waste diversion target by 2020 as part of the broader campus carbon neutrality effort. See “Other projects with this client” below for further details.

As part of continuous improvement efforts, TAP helped F&S improve recycling collection in fall 2014 and spring 2015 on and around the main campus quadrangle, known as the Quad.

Approach

Before this project, the Quad lacked separate outdoor recycling bins. Instead, receptacle lids indicated that trash and recycling should be commingled; the university’s Waste Transfer Station (WTS) then lightly sorted materials from those commingled bins for visible aluminum beverage cans and plastic beverage bottles #1 and #2. The university sent all other materials to the landfill. Off campus, in surrounding communities, haulers collect a wider range of plastics, so many people coming to campus assumed those same materials would be recyclable on campus. This situation, coupled with a lack of dedicated recycling containers on the Quad, led to high contamination and the loss of recyclable materials to the landfill-bound stream. It also perpetuated long-standing misconceptions among campus community members that materials from ANY waste bin on campus were subsequently sorted at the WTS — leading many to think that placing recyclables in a waste (landfill-bound) container was acceptable, even in areas/buildings where separate collection bins for recyclables were provided. Many people believed this behavior was “ok” because recyclables would be captured at the WTS. In reality, additional hand-sorting at the WTS occurred only for waste collected from certain facilities and spaces, not all spaces on campus, and not all materials deemed “recyclable” in surrounding communities were collected for recycling on campus. Clearly, the collection infrastructure on the Quad, a high-traffic area, needed changes to begin breaking down misconceptions and improper behaviors on campus.

Outdoor concrete waste bin with lid labeled for both trash and recyclables
Previously, standalone bins lacked clear behavior cues.

The plan to improve collection efficacy and messaging was to add 20 new recycling bins paired with existing bins on the Quad, turning 40 stand-alone containers into 30 waste/recycling stations. To do this cost-effectively, the team decided to retrofit the existing outdoor, cylindrical concrete waste receptacles on the Quad so some would be clearly labeled and color-coded for recycling and others for landfill-bound trash.  In addition to the expanded bin options, signage would be placed in the buildings surrounding the Quad to launch the new recycling procedures and clarify what materials could be recycled. To measure the project’s impact, ISTC conducted waste audits of materials placed in trash containers before and after the proposed changes, October 2014 and April 2015, respectively.

ISTC worked with F&S to coordinate the sample collection for the waste characterizations. Each trash bin (labeled “Landfill” after receptacle retrofitting) was emptied and lined with a trash bag to make collection easier. Samples were collected early in the morning to accommodate the waste collection staff’s regular schedule, and the bins were relined with a trash bag for the next sample. For post-implementation audits, we collected samples from both the designated “landfill” and “recycling” bins. Waste sorting was conducted at ISTC. All samples were sorted into three categories:

  • Bottles & Cans: Included #1 & #2 plastic bottles and aluminum beverage cans
  • Recycled in the Community: Included materials recycled by the City of Urbana’s U-Cycle Program
  • Landfill: Materials that were neither recycled on campus nor by the U-Cycle Program

Results

Waste audits showed that retrofitted separate bin waste/recycling stations sent significantly less recyclable material to the landfill, although designated recycling bins were still significantly contaminated with trash or non-recyclable materials on campus. More than 50% of the material in designated recycling bins in the April 2015 audit was trash, approximately 25% was “Bottles & Cans” recyclable on campus, and approximately 22% was material recyclable in the broader community but not on campus. At the time of the post-implementation audit, the bins had only been out on the Quad for about a week. TAP recommended increased education and outreach to reduce contamination of the recycling stream, as well as improved collection routes to reduce trash overflow in designated recycling bins. TAP also recommended sending only the recycling stream to the WTS for a secondary sort to reduce the amount of material needing to be sorted and improve the capture rate for “bottles & cans.” Finally, TAP recommended that the University increase the number of commodities collected for recycling on campus to decrease confusion.

Other Projects with this Client

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