Waste & Recycling

As an institution with more than 23,000 community members, Yale produces an abundant amount of waste – more than 8,000 metric tones in FY’08 to be exact. Our challenge is first to reduce the overall amount of materials being discarded and then, to the greatest extent possible, divert any remaining materials from the waste stream.

Reduce, reuse, and recycle. This is the mantra of waste management. Why? Because it is expensive to process waste – whether it is leaves, paper, or old clothes and because the earth has finite resources available for the manufacturing of products. The order of these words is not accidental either. Reduce: buy less, throw less away. Someone has to pay to take it all away, which costs money and emits greenhouse gases. Reuse: reusing and repurposing goods is always preferable to introducing items into the waste stream. Recycle: re-creating new items out of used items reduces pollution, strains on natural resources, and diminishes disposal costs.

Many people think of bottles, cans, paper, and cardboard when they consider recycling. These materials certainly play a role in waste management at Yale, but the university’s recycling efforts extend far beyond that. The University currently recycles twenty percent of its solid waste and has set a target of reaching a forty percent recycling rate. Last year, Yale recycled and donated a record 1387 tons of various materials.

• Leaves: Sixty-five tons of leaves went to the industrial-sized composting operation you can see from I95 when crossing the bridge into West Haven.
  Cardboard: Yale sent more than 719 tons of cardboard boxes to be reprocessed for other cardboard uses.
• Paper: More than 500 tons of mixed paper was captured and remanufactured into tissue paper, insulation, pizza boxes and cereal boxes. The next pizza you order could be boxed in the first draft of last year’s term paper.
• Cans and bottles: 133 tons of plastic and glass bottles and aluminum cans were diverted from the waste stream. This is roughly equivalent in weight to about 9 school buses. Plastics may return as other bottles, industrial plastic or even carpeting and fleece. Glass can be made into fiberglass insulation and used in asphalt. Steel can go to cars and desks, aluminum to airplanes.
• Electronics: Computers, monitors, batteries, cell phones, printers, compact florescent bulbs, etc… are full of precious metals and toxic chemicals. Connecticut’s state law mandates that these materials not end up in landfills, and Yale works hard to support this. Yale sends those items that cannot be repurposed to facilities to recover the precious metals for re-use and to dispose of the toxics safely. Printer cartridges are also sent out to be refilled.
• Sneakers: yes, sneakers. Yale ships old runners to a Nike facility that processes them to become running track pavement.
• Dorm stuff: When students move out of the residential colleges each year, there is inevitably stuff left behind, from notebooks to alarm clocks to bicycles. The university conducts an annual Spring Salvage – a move-out collection and donation program. Last year’s Spring Salvage resulted in more than 60 tons (about the same as 10 fully grown bull elephants) of clothing, books, furniture and electronics.
• Clothing: Much of the 44 tons of donated clothing and furniture went to non-profits right here in New Haven. What could not be used or re-sold locally was shipped to developing countries.