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Campus Waste to Zero Waste (University of Michigan)
Transcription
David Fair: This is 89.1 WEMU, and today, we're going to talk about the race to eliminate waste. This is Issues of the Environment on 89.1 WEMU, and I'm David Fair. The National Collegiate Waste Reduction Competition is underway, and the University of Michigan is looking to reclaim its title. U of M won the waste reduction competition in 2024, but fell a bit short last year, and it's working to regain the crown here in 2026. It's a fun way to involve young people and their host institutions in actively thinking about how best to work toward a more sustainable future. That's why the competition is called the Campus Race to Zero Waste. Our guest today is Alison Richardson, and Alison is sustainability program manager with the U of M's Office of Campus Sustainability. And thank you so much for making time for us today! I appreciate it!
Alison Richardson: Absolutely! Happy to be here!
David Fair: Waste reduction and sustainability are most certainly serious issues, but I gather that there's a real value in making this competition as fun as possible. How are the students, faculty and staff responding to the challenge?
Alison Richardson: Really well! This is U of M's 21st year participating in Campus Race to Zero Waste, which runs through March 28th, and it's the 25th year for the national competition overall. And it's a really great opportunity to engage our campus community in waste reduction and make people more aware of the impact that their waste behaviors have. So, here at U of M, we participate in the national competition, but then we do to take advantage of the friendly competitive aspect of the competition. We hold an internal building competition as well, so that's a really great opportunity to further engage our sustainability champions on campus and promote it within their buildings. And we encourage people throughout the eight weeks to really use it as an opportunity to engage their colleagues and peers learning about composting, reuse events on campus, how to make more sustainable purchases in their office. So, I would say, overall, people respond great and love the friendly competition aspect as well.
David Fair: And I do want to talk and explore further what goes on on campus, but I also want to talk a little bit about the competition. Are all three U of M campuses included in the competition or just Ann Arbor?
Alison Richardson: Primarily, the Ann Arbor campus participates in the national competition. I know you had mentioned that Ann Arbor has been recognized for our zero waste efforts in the competition a couple of times in the past few years, but I also want to highlight that U of M-Dearborn has also been recognized by Campus Race to Zero Waste for their zero waste event efforts previously, so they're making great strides too. So, they may be submitting some of their great initiatives as well to be recognized.
David Fair: As the U of M continues to evolve its sustainability measures, the competition in and of itself is continuing to evolve. If I understand it correctly, there are some new or different categories to be measured and evaluated this year. What are the areas of focus?
Alison Richardson: Yeah. So, in the national competition, there's three main categories. There's diversion rate, which is the percentage of all the waste produced that is diverted from the landfill by recycling and composting. There's recycling per capita, which is the weight of recyclables collected per person on campus. And then, the last main category is food organic, so this is looking at reducing food waste by using surplus food to feed people and animals and then also recognizing reducing food waste by diverting it to compost.
David Fair: And we kind of look at it in terms of weight or pounds, right, as to how much you're keeping out of the landfills?
Alison Richardson: Yes. All of the metrics that we're tracking for the competition and reporting out is all by weight, so by pounds of compost, recycling, and landfill material that's collected throughout the competition.
David Fair: WEMU's Issues of the Environment conversation on the University of Michigan's participation in the National Campus Race to Zero Waste continues. Our guest is Alison Richardson. She's sustainability program manager at the U of M. Waste reduction and sustainability efforts have been ongoing at the U of M for a long time, Alison. How does participation in this kind of national friendly competition fold into the campus waste of strategy?
Alison Richardson: Yeah, absolutely! So, waste reduction is a fairly accessible way for people to become involved in sustainability. It's visible, tangible, everyone interacts with waste and can be directly involved in reducing it on campus. This can start with rethinking how you consume, being aware of reuse, composting and recycling what you can. So, participating in this competition directly contributes towards our campus waste reduction to reduce our overall waste. And we also have a goal to achieve a 50% diversion rate by 2030, so this just falls right in line with working towards those goals. Also, I had previously mentioned that it's a great way to engage campus, so this also helps work towards our commitment to increasing a culture of sustainability on campus. Like I said, it gets everyone involved, it becomes more aware of behavior and the impact you can have. And I would say, beyond our waste and engagement goals, it also ties right into U of M's carbon neutrality commitment, so reducing our waste overall, recycling, composting, all of these have a much lower emissions impact than sending the material to landfill. So, I think participating in this competition, both in the national competition and then kind of bringing the competition down to the building level on campus, all works towards our goals.
David Fair: As you look at the evolution of waste reduction on the University of Michigan campus, how has it changed over the decades?
Alison Richardson: So, Campus Race to Zero Waste used to be called Recyclemania. That change in name about six years ago reflects how campuses are changing your approach to waste. It reflects the evolution over the years. Recycling is still a really important, crucial aspect of responsible waste management, but U of M and campuses in general are also focusing a lot more on reducing waste, composting, and taking a much more circular economy and zero waste approach to managing our waste.
David Fair: And is that being integrated into the curriculum and just the way of life on campus?
Alison Richardson: Yeah, absolutely! There's many classes on campus that are integrating sustainability into the curriculum. Among all of our sustainability initiatives, waste in particular, we're also using the campus as a living, learning lab, so giving students and researchers the opportunity to contribute to our waste reduction initiatives and then use the campus as a way to try out new strategies and learn and integrate research into that as well.
David Fair: We're talking with Alison Richardson from the University of Michigan about the Campus Race to Zero Waste on 89.1 WEMU's Issues of the Environment. Where has the school made the most gains in waste reduction through the years over the competition?
Alison Richardson: I would say since we started participating in the competition, which has been a while now since we've been participating, but I would say the growth of our composting program has really taken off over the years. It started with back of house getting prep waste from our dining halls and has expanded greatly to the rest of campus collecting from all buildings on campus through daily activities and working as hard as we can to of events on campus are zero waste events.
David Fair: From a systems and operational standpoint, how have you changed since you first began participating to now, and what kind of impact has that made?
Alison Richardson: Yeah, I think that our program has expanded a lot since we began participating in the competition 21 years ago now. We've worked to expand the materials that we're collecting on campus. And so, that is meant adding collections for composting, expanding our reuse efforts. We've standardized all of our bins on campus, which is really that infrastructure piece that is really contributed towards capturing more material and diverting it from the landfill and also making sure that we have less contamination in all of those waste streams.
David Fair: As you mentioned, this year's competition began on February 1st. It will run through March 28th. Do you know how you're doing so far?
Alison Richardson: The results are still out, but we're hoping for a strong showing again this year. The national competition recognizes schools by size, so small, medium, large. So, we always try to do our best to see how we stack up against other large universities. I'll note that both Ohio State and Michigan State are participating this year.
David Fair: And you really want to beat them, don't you?
Alison Richardson: Yes, of course! We always do! But we also do a lot of idea sharing with those two schools, so how we can all grow our waste program. But I love to play off the friendly competition aspect with that as well.
David Fair: And you've mentioned the competition is a couple of decades old now, and many of the students that are on campus weren't yet born. So, I'm curious. These are kids that have grown up in a more sustainable-aware community. Does that make a difference in how things are going?
Alison Richardson: Absolutely! I mean, we've definitely seen much more awareness in the student population of our waste issues, not only on campus but more broadly. And I think a lot of that student initiative and push has helped move along a lot our programs actually. It's helped really push to expand our composting programs to more availability for that on campus. I mean, it was the student initiative and push that helps launch our zero waste stadium program back in 2017. So, I think it really contributes to moving us towards our goals and reducing and creating a more circular economy on campus.
David Fair: And if you put together 1,000 colleges and universities it's making an impact nationwide. And that's really the point, isn't it?
Alison Richardson:Absolutely, yes! It has a great impact nationwide!
David Fair: Well, Alison, thank you so much for the information and conversation, and good luck through the rest of the competition!
Alison Richardson: Thanks so much!
David Fair: That is Alison Richardson. She is sustainability program manager in the University of Michigan's Office of Campus Sustainability. She's been our guest on Issues of the Environment. For more information on the Campus Race to Zero Waste competition and sustainability initiatives at the U of M, just stop by our website at WEMU.org. Issues of the Environment is produced in partnership with the Office of the Washtenaw County Water Resources Commissioner, and you hear it every Wednesday. I'm David Fair, here in the Timko Broadcasting Center. This is your community information station, 89.1 WEMU Ypsilanti.
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