Arizona State University Zero Waste Annual Report Fiscal Year 2021

Zero Waste Annual Report | Fiscal Year 2021

You are part of something bigger.

You are the difference.

You are the Zero Waste future.

Zero Waste Annual Report | Fiscal Year 2021 Contents Overview

3

Mission statement

3

Introduction

3

Goals

3

Highlights 4

Approach

5

Diversion rate

5

Aversion rate

7

Key reporting

8

Waste streams deep dive 9 A closer look at specialty recycling

10

Waste makeup by location

11

Looking ahead 12

Overview

Mission statement Arizona State University’s Zero Waste department aims to create and implement programs to reach the university’s circular resources goal and strengthen overall institutional sustainability by designing lasting, universal models that support ASU as a global leader in sustainable solid-waste management.

Introduction The Zero Waste Annual Report for the Fiscal Year 2021 provides an overview of the solid waste program at ASU from July 1, 2020, through June 30, 2021. The sustainability reporting boundaries for the university include the four main ASU Phoenix-metro campuses: Downtown Phoenix, Polytechnic, Tempe and West.* This report also includes the ASU Colleges at Lake Havasu City in the reporting boundaries. *ASU SkySong and ASU at Mayo Clinic are outside program and reporting boundaries. In Washington, D.C., ASU Barrett and O’Connor Washington Center fall within program and reporting boundaries, but we do not have its data.

Goals

Key goal targets:

ASU has eight sustainability goals.

The Zero Waste department is responsible for managing the outcomes of the circular resources goal. ASU defines a circular-resource system as achieving zero waste by adapting the goods brought onto campus to maximize their use before returning them to the economy for the most productive use possible.

View the ASU Sustainability goals and vision webpage for a complete list of university goals.

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Zero Waste Annual Report | Fiscal Year 2021

90%

Waste diversion from landfill by 2025.

30%

Waste aversion over the Fiscal Year 2008 by 2025.

Highlights Bin upgrades In response to COVID-19, Sun Devil Dining offered a to-go service using compostable and reusable containers.

To enhance that effort, the Zero Waste department installed 18 compost-recycle dual-litter containers around the Tempe campus Memorial Union and Hassayampa dining halls for the fall 2020 semester.

The Zero Waste department also refurbished, replaced and installed 143 dual-litter bins, equating to about 25% of all bins.

Dialing in on data The Zero Waste department launched a pilot program last year to monitor the volumes of front-load dumpsters to increase service use, such as ensuring only full containers are serviced. With added monitoring, we found that ASU was overreporting by about 30%. This information will help ASU reduce costs, report accurate data and make data-informed decisions to make ASU a more sustainable university.

Zero Waste Annual Report | Fiscal Year 2021

4

Approach Diversion Diversion rate is an industry-standard term used to track waste-diversion efforts. Universities, government entities and private businesses use diversion to track outgoing waste, allowing ASU to compare itself with other institutions.

ASU diverts waste by sending post-consumer materials and goods outside the institution to be remanufactured or reused, including donations, the sale of whole goods, recycling and composting, and purposefully purchasing easily-diverted goods.

The Zero Waste department tracks diversion each year to measure the percentage of the waste stream being recycled, composted, reused and donated, and how ASU is moving closer to its 90% diversion goal.

The ASU diversion rate for FY 2021 was

41.3%

ASU calculates diversion by tracking the percentage of material sent from ASU campuses to landfills and diverted from landfills through recycling, composting, donation or reuse.

University diversion rate in tons FY 2021

Landfilled 4,038 tons 58.7%

5

Diverted 2,843 tons 41.3%

Zero Waste Annual Report | Fiscal Year 2021

The FY 2021 diversion is down from FY 2020. Even though ASU reduced overall waste, diversion fell more than landfill, especially on the Downtown Phoenix, Lake Havasu and West campuses, while the Polytechnic and Tempe campuses experienced less variance. The only reason diversion did not decrease more was due to gains in motor oil, e-waste, green waste and lightbulbs. This underscores the role of centralization and partnerships.

These numbers indicate that while there was less activity on campus to generate waste, consistent with the fall 2020 and spring 2021 ASU Sync modality, people chose disposables for those activities. This demonstrates that people believed disposables were safer during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The ASU Zero Waste department monitors and tracks all solid waste that leaves the university.

The data in this report represents known tracking as of Sept. 1, 2021. The Zero Waste department gains more confidence each year in reporting as we seek to eliminate gaps in data arising from university expansion, contract changes or programmatic shifts.

Diversion equation: Tons recycled + Tons composted + Tons of surplus + Tons donated Tons landfilled + Tons recycled + Tons composted + Tons of surplus + Tons donated

x 100

Total waste at ASU FY 2008–FY 2021 10,000 9,000

Weight (tons)

8,000

0%

8% 14%

9%

6%

-1% 2%

12%

20%

100,000

14% 14% 22%

90,000 80,000

27%

7,000

38% 70,000

6,000

60,000

5,000

50,000

4,000

40,000

3,000

30,000

2,000

20,000

1,000

10,000 -

FY 2008 FY 2009 FY 2010 FY 2011 FY 2012 FY 2013 FY 2014 FY 2015 FY 2016 FY 2017 FY 2018 FY 2019 FY 2020 FY 2021

Landfill

Diversion

Population

Zero Waste Annual Report | Fiscal Year 2021

6

Aversion ASU defines aversion, or aversion rate, as preventing waste from entering the institution and influencing practices of how waste is circulated to reduce overall solid-waste output.

Aversion is a function of the durability of goods individuals choose when they purchase and dispose of goods and the institution’s systems to support repair, reuse and exchange.

The Zero Waste department tracks aversion year-to-year to see if the overall amount of waste produced through educational, research and operational activities at ASU has reduced or increased compared to its 2008 baseline year.

ASU had a

38%

aversion rate* during FY 2021.

*The Zero Waste department believes this is an inflated aversion rate due to the COVID-19 effects on the university.

Waste produced per person in pounds FTE students, faculty and staff Downtown Phoenix, Lake Havasu, Polytechnic, Tempe and West FY 2008–FY 2021 300

Weight (tons)

250 200 150 100 50 -

FY 2008

FY 2009

FY 2010

FY 2011

FY 2012

FY 2013

FY 2014

FY 2015

FY 2016

FY 2017

FY 2018

FY 2019

FY 2020

FY 2021

Aversion is waste reduction and reuse.

Departments and individuals can positively impact aversion in these ways: Reduce: Purchase less. Be mindful of purchases and how items will be disposed.

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Zero Waste Annual Report | Fiscal Year 2021

Reuse: Choose reusable items over items that need to be landfilled or recycled.

Aversion rate

10,000

10,000

8,000

8,000

6,000

6,000

4,000

4,000

2,000

2,000

FY 2021

FY 2008 Waste

Population

Waste (tons)

FTE students, faculty and staff Downtown Phoenix, Lake Havasu, Polytechnic, Tempe and West FY 2008–FY 2021

0

Population

Potential reasons for aversion rate fluctuations: • Change in business practices in response to COVID-19.

• Reduction of in-person activities and events.

Key reporting The Zero Waste department provides waste data to the following reports: • AASHE Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Reporting System.

• ASU’s Sustainability Operations annual review.

• Campus Race to Zero Waste.

• EPA Food Recovery Challenge.

• Pac-12 Zero Waste Challenge.

• Sierra Club’s Cool Schools.

• The Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

Zero Waste Annual Report | Fiscal Year 2021

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Waste streams deep dive ASU waste streams FY 2021 Specialty recycling 0.9%

Donations 0.5% Inert 0.1%

Scrap metal 2.8%

Green waste 18.3% Food waste 3.2%

The Blue Bin commingle and organics programs have had steady growth year-to-year.

Trash 58.7% Mixed recycling 15.5%

ASU collects different types of materials in streams listed below.

ASU waste streams in FY 2021 Material category

Weight (tons)

Portion of the total waste stream

Description

Trash

4038

58.7%

Municipal and operational solid waste sent to landfill.

Green and yard waste

1261

18.3%

Branches, grass clippings, palm fronds, plant trimmings, wood and yard waste.

Commingle

1067

15.5%

Paper, aluminum, cardboard, glass and plastic.

Food waste*

217

3.2%

Food waste, napkins and compostable food service items from athletics events and dining halls.

Scrap metal

193

2.8%

Scrap metals salvaged from HVAC upgrades, plumbing retrofits and other operational projects.

Specialty recycling

62

0.9%

Items collected through specialty programming; the material breakdown is in the specialty recycling table.

Donations

34

0.5%

Donations collected during Ditch the Dumpster at move-out and donations collected throughout the year in residence halls and items donated to Treasures for Teachers.

Inert

6

0.1%

Concrete, sand and asphalt.

Total waste 9

6878

*With the shift of on-campus dining towards to-go service, the Zero Waste department projects that FY 2022 food waste will decrease. Food waste will be spread across the university rather than centrally collected and captured in the dining halls.

Zero Waste Annual Report | Fiscal Year 2021

A closer look at specialty recycling The specialty-recycling stream makes up 1.45% of the total waste diverted from ASU and encompasses many programs and tracking systems.

Specialty recycling in FY 2021 Material

Weight (tons)

% of total waste stream

Wood

24.84

0.4%

Mattresses

11.00

0.2%

The stream covers hazardous and difficult-to-recycle items such as batteries, light bulbs and motor oil. It also includes items that cannot be recycled in the Blue Bin commingle program but can be recycled through other processes.

Pallets

8.88

0.1%

Fat, oil, grease

8.02

0.1%

e-waste

5.59

0.1%

Some material streams in the chart below are part of university operations, and others are influenced by students, faculty and staff’s personal purchasing choices.

Food donation

1.57

0.0%

Soft plastic

1.04

0.0%

Styrofoam

0.77

0.0%

Coffee pods

0.37

0.0%

Snack wrappers

0.08

0.0%

62.16

0.9%

Find more information about specialty recycling drop-off locations on the Zero Waste webpages. Website visitors also can find specialty-recycling options for use in their offices and departments and how best to decrease their use of single-use and difficult-to-recycle items whenever possible.

Total

Zero Waste Annual Report | Fiscal Year 2021 10

Waste makeup by location Waste makeup by location FY 2021 100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% Tempe campus

Polytechnic campus

Downtown Phoenix campus

Diverted

West campus

ASU Colleges at Lake Havasu City

Landfilled

Diversion rate by location Location

Diverted (tons)

Landfilled (tons)

Diversion rate

Landfill rate

Tempe

1412.58

2759.32

33.9%

66.1%

Downtown Phoenix

120.02

525.85

18.6%

81.4%

Polytechnic

752.14

492.41

60.4%

39.6%

West

429.11

165.89

72.1%

27.9%

Lake Havasu

24.12

24.01

50.1%

49.9%

Diversion rates differ Diversion rates vary by campus and are influenced by the waste type generated at each campus and ASU’s ability to divert it. The Downtown Phoenix campus has the lowest diversion rate. A challenge with the Downtown campus is that it is not a traditional campus and its boundaries blur between ASU and the City of Phoenix community.

The ASU Colleges at Lake Havasu City campus has a high diversion rate because of its small footprint and limited activity compared to the Tempe campus. With a diversion rate of 33.9%, Tempe is the most similar to the universitywide diversion rate.

There was a reduction of generated waste due to COVID-19 affecting operations by shifting to virtual activities.

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Looking ahead Front-load monitoring expansion

Continuing engagement programs

The Zero Waste department piloted a dumpster-monitoring system in FY 2021 that improved data accuracy, reduced service level costs, and increased the efficiency of each service by 30%. Zero Waste plans a full implementation by the end of fall 2021.

The Zero Waste department will continue to grow engagement programming with more interactive activities with internal ASU partners throughout the year.

Programs include:

Compost collection expansion into offices

• Curating in-person engagement to meet the varying levels of student zero-waste literacy.

The Zero Waste department will expand the initial office kitchenette compost program across the university in FY 2022.

• Reusables at Starbucks: Partner with Aramark and Starbucks to increase reusables on all campuses.

Focus on behavior change

Collection mapping

The Zero Waste department will target behavior change that focuses on compost adoption, reusables use and recycling participation. Further program work will include university partners and leverage ASU’s interdisciplinary culture to identify innovative, human-centered solutions.

The Zero Waste department will collect geographic information systems data on outdoor dual-litter bins, residence hall collection points, specialty-collection points and operational centralization points. This information will help engage the campus population in new ways that enhance the awareness of the university’s sustainability goals.

Initiatives include: • Food waste and composting study: Understanding student’s consumption patterns in residential life.

• School of Sustainability consumptions course: Activating a “learning laboratory” through a curriculum to develop zero waste intervention.

Zero Waste Annual Report | Fiscal Year 2021 12

Visit zerowaste.asu.edu for more information about recycling markets, diversion-program changes, sustainable purchasing and switching to reusables.

Copyright © 2021 Arizona Board of Regents for Arizona State University. All rights reserved.

Photography by Enterprise Marketing Hub and Zero Waste team.