Introduction
Kapi’olani Community College held a baseline waste audit on September 19th and 20th, 2018. The project was led by the Kapi’olani Service & Sustainability Learning (KSSL) program, an interdisciplinary team of faculty members and students, and was guided by the Kōkua Hawaiʻi Foundation. The KCC Facilities Department and custodial staff played a major role in project logistics and planning as well. One week’s worth of waste, about 600 pounds, was collected from across the campus and sorted to determine what materials made up the waste stream.
Volunteers from the KSSL program were trained in safe waste handling by Kōkua Foundation, and received service-learning credit for their work. In addition, students taking S-Focused courses visited the sort site with their instructors, who designed classes to focus on elements of waste through lenses of Biology, Economics, Language, and Communication.
This project aligns with the KCC’s Sustainability and Climate Action plan goal of developing “Campus as a Living Laboratory” projects, engaging students in applied, solutions-oriented sustainability research on campus. Quinn OʻMalley, a student, led the data analysis as a capstone project for the Academic Subject Certificate in Sustainability and created a summary report. The findings from the audit were presented to campus stakeholders throughout 2019 in order to organize around follow-up actions and waste reduction policies. These stakeholders include: Student Congress, Staff Council, KALĀUALNI, and Faculty Senate.
A follow-up waste audit was scheduled for Spring 2020, but was postponed due to campus closures resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Audit Results
Total Waste Audited by Weight: 618.16 lbs
Top 3 Categories by Weight
- Organics (Food and Napkins): 181.65 lbs
- Paper (Non-Recyclable, Recyclable, Paper Towels): 166.11 lbs
- Takeout Containers (Plastic and Paper Cups, Utensils, Straws, Boxes, and Compostable Take Out Food Packaging): 114.45 lbs
Total Waste Audited by Volume: 1168 gal
Top 3 Categories by Volume:
- Plastic (HI-5 and Non-Hi-5 Plastic): 366.05 gal
- Paper (Recyclable and Nonrecyclable Paper, Paper Towels): 342.75 gal
- Takeout Containers (Plastic and Non-Recyclable Cups, Utensils, Straws, Boxes, and Compostable Takeout Food Packaging): 326.3 gal
KCC Waste Summary By Weight (lbs.)
KCC Waste Summary By Volume (gal.)
Recommendations and Follow Up Actions
Top 3 Suggested Interventions
- Reduction of Paper Towels: Installing hand dryers, encouraging the use of personal cloth hand towels
- Reduction of Plastic and Take-out Containers: Phasing out of single-use plastics and replacing them with reusables possible.
- Composting: Food and Green Waste, napkins
Individual actions include:
- PREVENT: Adopt zero waste actions daily: use reusable bottles, cups, straws, utensils, and containers when consuming food on campus
- MEASURE: Participate in 30-day challenges to measure the aggregate impact of participation
- PREVENT: Use a personal hand towel instead of paper towel or napkins
- REDUCE: Shred paper to be sent to the culinary compost bin behind ʻŌhiʻa
Two weeks after the Waste Date presentation to Student Congress, the assembly voted to promote reusable utensils on campus and will purchase and distribute at least 500 utensil sets to students in 2019. Recipients will have the option of participating in a 30-day challenge to measure the collective impact of their use. Thank you Student Congress for taking steps to reduce campus waste!
In a candid conversation with Chef Dave Hamada on March 11th, 2019, he said that he is very supportive of using reusable utensils, plates and bowls at the cafeteria, and he anticipates that it would be a cost savings. Recently, the cafeteria implemented a 30 cent fee for single-use utensils. It lasted several weeks and then was suspended because of customer complaints. To address this barrier, it would be important to provide data about the environmental impact/carbon footprint of single-use food items, and to show why reusable items are the better choice for both our island and global ecosystems.
- switching to reusable plates and utensils in the cafeteria
- charging a fee for single-use utensils, cups, plates, bowls–even if they are biodegradable
- selling reusable utensils, bottle, cups and containers in the cafeteria
- ban on selling single-use plastic bottles at KCC
- separate receptacles for food, compostable and recyclable items at the ʻŌhiʻa cafeteria and other main student areas
- implementing a compost site on campus for biodegradable food and paper items (different from the culinary compost bin)
- add a sink(s) in the cafeteria for students to rinse reusable food items