Tufts University
OP-18: Waste Diversion

Recycling is part of Tufts culture; all staff, faculty and students are expected to participate. Everyone has bins available to them. The cleaners empty recycling from employee’s desk sides and from dorm common bins. Students receive blue bins for their dorm rooms. We participate in RecycleMania. Recycling and trash weights are tracked. Periodic waste sorts and bin inspections allow us to monitor our progress. New students receive recycling information when they matriculate freshman year. Every floor of every dorm has central recycling stations with instruction posted. New employees receive recycling instructions during their employee orientation. We have a webpage where RAs can print out information to create bulletin boards on recycling (http://www.tufts.edu/tuftsrecycles/bulletinboards.html.) Every shift (1st, 2nd, 3rd & weekend) of custodians on each campus receive an annual recycling review and retraining. Most student publications include a “recycle me” logo, including The Daily newspaper. Pre consumer food waste is composted in six out of eight eateries and post-consumer waste is composted in three out of eight. We have a large move-out recycling program where we collect electronics, carpets, food, clothing, paper and commingled recyclables. Our most recent investment has been $40,000 in new permanent steel outdoor waste stations (since 2009).