Waste Audit – America Recycles Day
Schaeffer, Trowbridge, Phillips, Pentacrest
11/15/13
Introduction: To celebrate America Recycles Day, waste audits were conducted of one day’s worth of
trash from each of the following: Schaeffer, Trowbridge, and Phillips Halls and Pentacrest outdoor trash.
Attendees:
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20+ Introduction to Environmental Sciences students (plus TA)
2 staff and 1 faculty member from Phillips Hall Green Team
2 ARH members
4 UIEC members
FM Director of PD&C
FM Custodial Manager
FM Safety Manager
Oakdale Maintenance Manager
City of Iowa City Recycling Coordinator
Sustainability Communication Specialist, Recycling Coordinator and Recycling Manager
Purpose: Audits are educational tools that provide perspective, enthusiasm, and empowerment to
those involved, particularly those that spend time in the building that is being audited. Not only can
people see the potential for waste diversion with their own eyes, the resulting data is also excellent
evidence for making a case to do more—and to know what types of waste specifically can be reduced.
Results: The audited sites have very similar waste streams.
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Single-stream recycling: This is roughly 40% of the waste stream in each of the three buildings.
It is 30% of the waste stream in outdoor Pentacrest trash. The primary component of the singlestream recycling in the trash is paper and plastic.
Organics: 30% of trash in Schaeffer, Phillips, and Pentacrest is organic, only 20% in Trowbridge.
Trash: 30% of trash in Trowbridge Hall is trash, while it’s between 5-15% in the other locations.
The higher a percentage of trash found in the trash containers, the better, meaning the trash is
being used for what its correct purpose.
Other recycle: Comprised of plastic bags and glass (the majority of which is plastic bags), this
stream is roughly 10% of each buildings trash, yet it is 20% of the Pentacrest’s trash. It is noted
that one of the bags of bags that was weighed for the Pentacrest was strangely high, seeming as
if it had other non-plastic bag materials inside of it.
Liquids: This stream is between 5-10% of buildings’ trash and 15% of Pentacrest trash.
Discussion: Each building has opportunities for improvement that can be defined by the occupants of
those buildings that took part in the waste audit. In general, the following actions could be pursued:
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Communicating results of audit to occupants
Communicating regularly about recycling and waste reduction to keep on radar
Conducting building walk-through to optimize placement and type of recycling/trash containers
in public halls/lobbies, classrooms, and offices
Anecdotes
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Trowbridge
o “I’m seeing a ton of paper that I consider blatantly recyclable!”
o Common items: plastic bags
o Lots of organics, coffee cups (“dump your coffee out”) before recycling
o Cigarette butts (even though smoking is not allowed on campus.)
o Unopened food packages
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Schaeffer
o “Too much paper in the trash. I think people just throw paper (and other recycling) in
the trash because it’s more convenient. So there needs to be recycling next to trash.
o Lots of plastic utensils; some from a birthday party.
o “I’m reading as many (discarded) research papers as an TA.”
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Phillips
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Lots of coffee cups, including Styrofoam; other common items were paper and organics.
Composting is available in Phillips, but not enough bins.
Still lots of organics showing up in trash, fruit, etc.
Lots of liquids in containers
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Pentacrest
o Lots of plastic drink containers, coffee cups, and paper
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Overall
o Lots of recycling—surprising amounts of paper—in trash