Stopping the Waste

The UCSF Recycling & Waste Reduction (R&W) unit is responsible for overseeing the waste stream for all UCSF locations, with the goal of having a zero-waste campus by 2020. The department has made significant progress toward achieving this goal, but continues to seek alternative strategies. Those efforts led them to reach out to the Supply Chain Management’s Strategic Program Management and Communications unit to assist them in advancing their mission.

Together, the units determined three major issues:·      

• Inability to measure waste volume by department: Unlike water and electricity which have meters that track usage, UCSF currently does not have a mechanism to track the amount of waste per department.

• Lack of compliance: Despite the University’s widespread efforts to encourage the UCSF community to sort materials into designated bins, departments continue to struggle in putting waste into the proper category.
  Recology, UCSF’s third-party vendor, collects waste across the University. They segment their pickup by recyclable, compostable and garbage. UCSF is charged for each pickup, and receive credits for any recyclable and compostable material that is disposed. The University only gets credit for material that is placed into the proper recycle or compost bins. If a recyclable item is placed in the garbage, UCSF does not receive any credits. Not only does the University not save money, this practice also contributes to the world’s landfill problem.

• Current efforts to educate UCSF workforce have been ineffective: Waste is not a sexy or interesting topic that people enjoy talking about, so coordinating meetings with departments to influence them to change their behavior in disposing of waste is often futile. There also is no structure in place to identify departments preventing the University from reaching its zero-waste goal. R&W will need to identify education and outreach opportunities.

Strategic Program Management and Communications and Recycling & Waste Reduction are working together to develop a strategy to combat these challenges and turn UCSF into a pioneer in waste management.