To combat recycling contamination in the dormitories, Housing and Residential seeks to educate residents about Arizona’s recycling protocol. Data taken by Housing and Residential Life indicates that about 85% of the residents in campus housing are first-year students, many of whom are out-of-state. Recycling contamination is a common mistake made by well-intentioned students, but by collecting data on the trends of it, this project can feasibly reduce contamination greatly while also serving as a model for others seeking to educate on recycling.
The initiative will be directed by the Senior Coordinator of Sustainability Operations and Initiatives, who will be assisted by a graduate assistant and two student employees. The graduate student will be tasked with diagnosing, assessing, and mitigating the main sources of recycling contamination by ramping up data collection and recycling education early in the academic year.
The initiative aims to understand the sources of contamination by monitoring recycling contents and doing research on student recycling behavior. The project aims to reduce contamination levels, increase recycling rates, and establish a sustainable culture at UArizona.
This project has successfully educated more students on U of A campus than any project ever funded! 822 employees, from Housing staff to custodians, made this project a success. CORE staff directly educated over 1,170 students through direct intervention and over 15,000 students through dorm-wide programming.
Across the duration of the project, spring semester recycling rates consistently increased, and spring contamination rates consistently decreased. Contamination rates dropped below 15% when it had been averaging about 36% over the past couple of years. The intensive education in Fall 24, with all of the improvements made over year one of the project, appears to have been quite effective in decreasing contamination rates in the dorms by Spring 25.
This project’s work continues, but you can read about the lessons learned in their Year One Report and their Final CORE Report under "Support Documents."
Please check out this awesome video the team made that shows how Wildcats recycle!
