University of New Hampshire
OP-22: Waste Minimization

2010 is the first year for which we have comprehensive waste and recycling data.

In 2013, Trash 2 Treasure conducted a UNH waste audit of of campus, including student move in and move out days.

The University System of New Hampshire Purchasing Office facilitates the Surplus Property program. Through the Surplus Property website individuals can browse and/or upload to an online inventory of surplus items (furniture, miscellaneous, audio/visual equipment, computers, research equipment, vehicles) available for sale to university departments and the general public. Surplus may also be transferred to another department, donated to a non-profit organization, create an advertisement for the sale of surplus, or request to scrap obsolete equipment.

In the spirit of sustainability and in accordance with President Mark Huddleston’s call to restrict printing and mailing costs, after this printing the UNH Campus Directory will be available only online starting in 2010. The online UNH directory for faculty/staff is currently available from the UNH homepage, and the online directories for students and faculty/staff are currently available at blackboard.unh.edu under the My UNH Resources tab: http://www.unh.edu/directories/facstaff.html Moreover, the undergraduate course catalog complete its transition to online-only delivery with the 2010-2011 edition. The Graduate School's course catalog has been online-only since the 2009-2010 edition. Through Blackboard, students can also view syllabi and course schedules uploaded by instructors, as well as submit papers and exams electronically and register for courses, among other things: http://blackboard.unh.edu http://www.unh.edu/undergrad-catalog/choosecatalog.cfm http://www.unh.edu/grad-catalog/choosecatalog.cfm

The majority of Student Computer Clusters (SCCs) require Cats Cash to enable printing. Cats Cash is very much like a debit card onto which students (and parents) can deposit money. Standard printing rates are 10 cents per page. There are computer labs on campus where free printing is available. Such locations are monitored by a computer lab technician, and students are instructed to limit their use of free printing to five pages.

UNH has instituted many strategic activities to reduce the amount of waste produced on campus. Recycle Everything New & Used (RENU) was a volunteer-run program started at UNH by a student in 2002. The Ecological Advocates student organization now facilitates RENU. In 2009, RENU collected a total of 2,220 lbs of clothes and shoes for Planet Aid by placing collection boxes throughout campus dormitories. Students use these boxes to discard nonperishable foods and unwanted clothing. RENU donated 20 boxes of food of a variety of types with an average weight of 25 pounds per box and a total of 500 pounds to the Cornucopia Food Pantry in Durham. Recent years have seen as much as 4,800 pounds of food collected. Kitchen items are also donated to the Good Will in nearby Dover. In an effort to reduce UNH’s impact on landfills, the UNH Student Environmental Action Coalition (SEAC) initiated a program called Trash 2 Treasure (T2T) in 2010, which absorbed UNH-RENU. T2T collects furniture, electronics and other reusable items that students throw away each year, storing it all over the summer, and then holds a large 3-day yard sale during move-in weekend to sell it all back to students. The goal is to create a sustainable program where we will be able to run the program next year with the money we make at the yard sale this year, and so on, for years to come.

UNH Dining composts all pre-consumer food waste.

There are three dining halls on the UNH campus. Stillings Hall and Philbrook Hall are completely trayless (Philbrook November since 2008, Stillings Hall since January 2009). Holloway Commons, the largest of the three dining halls, began eliminating trays from its facility through “Trayless Tuesdays” in January 2008. Though trays are still available at Holloway Commons, the result of “Trayless Tuesdays” has been that many students have voluntarily ceased using trays.

Compostable containers are used in the UNH Dairy Bar.

Reusable UNH Dining mugs are given out at the beginning of every year to incoming freshmen and customers for use at UNH retail locations to encourage waste reduction. By presenting the "mug club" mug, customers receive $0.25 off their coffee/tea.

UNH Dining does some tray less meals.

Other contacts: UNH Dining: David Hill University System of NH employees can also donate and sell used electronic and other items through USNH Surplus: www.unh.edu/purchasing/surplus/index.html. Also, UNH IT manages the disposal of computers for UNH Durham faculty and staff. As for ink cartridges, UNH Facilities holds all the printer cartridges until they have a truckload (1 ton pickup), then delivers them to Reliable Technologies in Manchester, NH. The company sorts through the cartridges, keeps those that can be recycled (paying UNH for these) and destroying those that cannot. To create fewer cartridges in the first place, UNH Printing Services offers a “Refill, Don’t Landfill” program in which cartridges can be refilled with ink through Cartridge World. UNH Health Services is an ambulatory care center offering only out-patient services, i.e. we have no in-patient hospital beds. Employee Headcount vs. FTE: On an all-employee basis, FTE values aren’t consistent. For adjunct employees, the concept of an annualized FTE value doesn’t really apply as these are mostly part-time, hourly, and/or temporary employees whose % time fluctuates quite a bit over the course of a year. More informatin on waste reduction available at: www.sustainableunh.unh.edu/waste www.unh.edu/purchasing/surplus/index.html http://it.unh.edu/index.cfm?id=43A69C62-CAE8-B08D-8F3CE7C896E32791 Other contacts: Steve Pesci; Paul Chamberlin; Lisa Pollard