Introduction
UH Maui College Campus conducted a baseline waste audit on January 14th, 2018 lead by UHMC Sustainability Intern, Pali O’Connell. Pali and a team of volunteer students, faculty and staff sorted through 1 weeks worth of waste in 10 of the 13 dumpsters on campus.
The UHMC Sustainability Committee flagged waste reduction as a priority after a campus-wide survey which identified waste as a major topic of concern for the campus community. The Waste Reduction Project team was created to begin working on waste, and is made up of the Sustainability Committee, the UHMC Sustainability Intern, the Student Ohana for Sustainability (SOS) club, the Sustainable Living Institute of Maui (SLIM), and members from the UHMC campus body. In addition to conduction the audit, the Waste Reduction Project Team exenstively researched waste reduction and initiated stakeholder engagement with industry professionals, the local community, and the student body. This team has been able to take the results from the audit and manifest them into action (read more below!)
Audit Results
Top 3 Categories by Weight
- Paper (recyclable, non-recyclable, cardboard, paper towels): 252.75 lbs
- Food and Napkins: 140.85 lbs
- Plastic (food wrappers and packaging, polystyrene, recyclable plastic): 157.70 lbs
Total Waste Audited by Weight: 791.20 lbs
Top 3 Categories by Volume:
- Food and Napkins: 611.53 gal
- Paper (Recyclable, Cardboard, Paper Towels): 476.88 gal
- Plastic (Food wrappers, Food Containers, Styrofoam, HI-5 and Non-HI-5 Recyclable Plastic Containers, Other Plastic): 383.38 gal
Total Waste Audited by Volume: 1855.92 gal
UH Maui College Waste By Weight (lbs.)
UH Maui College Waste By Volume (gal.)
Recommendations and Follow Up Actions
Waste Reduction Action: Plastic Bottle Ban and the Waste Revolution Campaign
Since completing the audit, the Waste Reduction Project Team passed the “Resolution and Commitment to Reducing Plastic and Waste on Maui”, which was signed by the Chancellor on Earth Day 2019. The resolution pledges UHMC to reduce its waste to minimal levels within five years, starting with no more plastic bottle sales on campus, increased water bottle refill stations, and focused campus education! The Waste Revolution sub-committee of the Sustainability Council was launched to help see this through. The Waste Revolution team determined that plastic bottles are sold in 3 primary locations on campus (the bookstore, the cafeteria, and in vending machines). Theyʻve set out to work with the campus groups responsible for managing vendor contracts, and so far have achieved the following!:
- Cafeteria: Sodexo (the cafeteria manager) agreed to replace all plastic bottles with glass and aluminum waster is now sold in aluminum and Sodexo will and install more drink dispensers by Fall 2019 (completed).
- Bookstore: the managers agreed to replace all plastic bottles with glass and aluminum and install new drink dispensers. However, the bookstore has a back-stock of plastic water to sell and is working working on procuring new electric and water line to install dispensers (in progress).
- Vending machines: managed by Office of Student Life that depends on 51% of their program revenue from sales of beverages in plastic bottles. At this time they have been unable to find a solution with the vendor to replace the plastic bottles with any other materials w/o major revenue loss (pending new products to replace plastic or fundraising from donors to offset plastic bottle revenue).