MPS Waste Audit Report by Andre Xiong For a copy of this report or to access more information about waste management / recycling at MPS, visit: http://mpsgoesgreen.mpls.k12.mn.us School name and grade: Today’s date: Audit date: Audit participants: Northrop Urban Environmental School k-8 3-19-2010 2-25-2010 Andre Xiong, Hennepin County Environmental Services Melissa Carraher, Assistant Building Engineer Diane Daun, MPS Plant Operations Doug Link, Allied Waste Services ANALYSIS OF WASTE GENERATION AT YOUR SITE Waste generated at your site in February, 2010: In February, your school produced 4,580 lb of waste.1 Trash: 2,800 lb (61 %) Mixed recycling: 760 lb (17 %) Organics: 1,020 lb (22 %) Based on your school population of 442 (395 students, 47 staff), each person in your school produced approximately 10.5 pounds of waste during this month.2 It took 4.5 dumpsters to haul your 2,800 lb of trash.3 The waste you recycled in February will result in 1,780 less pounds of material going to the incinerator as well as the production of new materials and 365 lb of compost.4 Making new products from recycled material is less expensive and more environmentally friendly than making them from raw materials. Compost is a safe fertilizer that also reduces erosion, water loss, and weed growth in soils. 5 Typical school waste content is comprised of 32% organic waste . Your school diverted 22 % of waste to be composted. Congratulations, keep working to achieve 32% and beyond. MPS is now collecting information about waste and recycling rates by school. The analysis below is based on data for the month which this audit took place at your site. To access weights from other months, please visit: www.mpsgoesgreen.com and click on ‘Green Reports’. District cost of trash and recycling disposal for your site in February, 2010 6: Monthly haul charge $1.90/yd Processing fee rate $/ton Processing fee based on weight MN State tax 17% Hennepin Co. tax 14.5% Trash, actual $228 $40 $56 $9.52 $8.12 Total Cost $302 (see analysis of table on following page) Mixed Recycling $30 $12 $5 exempt exempt $35 Organics Recycling $15.20 $15 $8 exempt exempt Trash, had you not recycled $228 $40 $92 $15.57 $13.28 $23 $348 In February alone, your school diverted 1,780 lb of waste towards recycling/composting; saving the district $47 in disposal fees that would have incurred from adding that weight the trash instead of recycling it. These savings allow the district to enhance its resource management strategy and offer programs like organics recycling and improved mixed recycling. Increasing your recycling rates would yield even higher savings throughout the school year. ON-SITE AUDIT RESULTS & DISCUSSION Included below are findings and recommendations based on the audit of your building’s waste management practices.7 Organics Recycling: You were recycling organics in addition to mixed recycling. Congratulations for being among the first MPS schools to launch this important program. Hopefully you have all the tools you need to make it successful. If you need to change your hauling schedule or request additional supplies, please contact your Plant Operations supervisor. If you have questions about the program overall, including associated education materials, please visit: http://mpsgoesgreen.mpls.k12.mn.us/Organics_Recycling.html OR email: mpsgoesgreen@mpls.k12.mn.us You were not recycling organics during breakfast. A large percentage of the organic waste created by your school happens during breakfast. This presents an opportunity to significantly increase your organics recycling rates, save money in waste hauling costs, as well as maintain consistency for students who are participating in the program. A successful breakfast organics program requires a close partnership between the breakfast supervisors and the building engineer. You were not collecting restroom (paper towel) waste as organics. Try collecting restroom paper towel waste for organic recycling. School restroom waste is almost exclusively paper towels so very little education and promotion is required to successfully include it as organic recycling. Keep in mind that a little contamination is acceptable. The district recommends collecting the restroom waste without bags in the restrooms and then consolidating it into a compostable bag-lined organics barrel designated for that area. You had educational materials displayed in cafeteria to help during sorting. Congratulations for making every effort to educate and encourage proper sorting of waste. Proper sorting will maximize recycling rates and decrease trash to fully experience the financial and environmental benefits of recycling. Remember that MPS has informational signage in English, Spanish, Hmong, and Somali on the website Your lunchroom sort stations were monitored. Congratulations for having dedicated individuals to actively assist students with sorting as necessary. Proper sorting will maximize recycling rates and decrease trash to fully experience the financial and environmental benefits of recycling. The shortage of monitors to assist with sorting has been linked to unsuccessful organics recycling programs. Keep up the good work. Remember that volunteers must go through an application process through the district. Keep in mind that the intent of monitoring is to help students learn to sort properly as opposed to doing the actual sorting for students. Your head building engineer suggests there has been significant decrease in the amount of trash since organics recycling was introduced. Congratulations on successfully diverting organic material away from the trash and into recycling. This success is critical to the financial sustainability of organics recycling. Keep up the good work! Recycling and waste reduction practices: You were stacking trays prior to disposal. Congratulations on efficiently using resources. Trays take up massive volume and fill up bags quickly, requiring them to be changed out frequently. Stacking trays to be disposed of separately will allow much more room in waste containers for other waste items. This practice, in turn, can save space in the dumpster(s) as well. Continue this practice with the new compostable trays. You were collecting liquid waste in a separate container. Congratulations. A great way to minimize the weight of your waste is to divert liquid waste down the drain. Weight is one key basis that MPS’ hauler uses to charge the district for trash and recycling. In addition, because MPS sends its trash to the incinerator, dry waste results in a more efficient burn which is better for the environment. You were using MPS Goes Green signage. Congratulations on helping standardize the district-wide MPS Goes Green message. Remember that there are informational signs in English, Spanish, Hmong and Somali available on the MPS website. Also, there are fun ‘What to Collect’ signs on the website that are appropriate for a K-8 audience. You were using custom-made educational materials as well. Congratulations on taking ownership for making your building green. Signs and educational materials made by staff and students in addition to those provided by MPS will help make the program successful in your building. Few of the surveyed classrooms displayed posters and labels to aid in sorting. Posters and labels help students and staff comply with the recycling program. Teachers, take as little as a minute of your time to post up signage by recycling containers to encourage recycling in the classroom. Labeling containers and displaying recycling information reduces contamination in the recycling containers. Minimal effort is required to post up educational materials yet has major positive effects. Please check the MPS website for a variety of informational signs you can use in classrooms. Another step you can take is to incorporate environmental sustainability information into coursework. The MPS Goes Green website provides curriculum materials you may find useful. You often used color coding to promote sorting. Congratulations on using the MPS-designated colors (blue = mixed recycling, green = organics recycling, red/gray = trash) to promoting recycling and proper sorting. Make sure to cover up any recycling labels on containers that do not correspond with its designated use. (i.e. recycling sign on a red barrel). Contact your Plant Operations Supervisor for stickers that can be used for this purpose. Interior containers: All classrooms sampled had recycling containers. MPS will make every effort to provide every (class) room with recycling containers, please contact Plant Operations Supervisor for extra containers. Paper makes up a tremendous portion of classroom waste, yet an astounding amount of recyclable paper is still making its way into trash bins. The labor required to throw paper into the trash or recycling bin are equal. Give students the opportunity to recycle in the classroom by providing recycling bins in all classrooms. Promote proper use of recycling bins through signage and classroom activities. See the MPS Goes Green website for ideas, http://mpsgoesgreen.mpls.k12.mn.us/ You often provided both trash and recycling containers at the same location (in classrooms). Congratulations, the practice of placing both trash and recycling containers near one another has been found to increase recycling. Making recycling containers available wherever there are trash containers maximizes the likelihood that recyclables will not simply be thrown away. You were not bagging mixed recycling containers. Congratulations on further reducing your school’s environmental impact by minimizing plastic bag use. MPS’ waste hauler prefers recyclables un-bagged because the bags become a problem at the materials recovery facility (MRF) where the recyclables are sorted and processed. At the MRF, in order to keep the plastic bags from getting wrapped around the sorting equipment, they must be separated and disposed. The plastic bags do not get recycled. Furthermore, the recyclables can easily be contained and transported through the use of bins, dumpsters, and trucks. Keep up this environmentally friendly, cost effective practice. Contamination assessment: Number of sampled bags of trash: 0 Samples not provided or available. Number of sampled bags of recycling: 1 Your sample had very minimal contamination (plastic wrap and laminate) Congratulations. Your mixed recycling stream was essentially free of trash! This means that the contents of your recycling dumpster will be used to make quality recycled products. When you have excessive contamination in your recycling it could mean that the hauler will reject your entire load to the trash. It is very important that your school community continues to keep the recycling stream as good of quality as possible. Limit recycling of plastics to bottles only—do not include other common plastics such as packaging and food containers. If you would like more clarification on whether or not certain items are recyclable, please contact me. Number of sampled bags of organics: 0 Samples not provided or available. Exterior dumpsters: Your dumpsters were labeled. Congratulations for labeling the different dumpsters to distinguish what waste type goes in them, ensuring that trash and recyclables are disposed of properly. Waste were correctly disposed of in their corresponding dumpster. Congratulations on completing the process by correctly placing waste in their proper dumpsters. Your dumpsters were effectively arranged to encourage recycling. Your school has made it convenient to dispose of recyclables by placing the recycling dumpsters closer or at least next to the trash dumpsters, thereby reducing chances of it being disposed of in the trash dumpster. Your trash dumpster [6 yd3, picked up 5x weekly ] is typically not very full at pick-up. Congratulations on successful trash reduction. Please notify your Plant Operations supervisor to reduce pickup frequency and/or dumpster capacity. Your mixed recycling dumpster [ 4 yd3 each, picked up 1x weekly ] is typically full at pick-up. Congratulations for filling your mixed recycling dumpster to its capacity. Dumpster disposal fees are charged based on size and service frequency, so an underutilized dumpster costs the district extra money. Increasing to a bigger recycling dumpster is perfectly fine if your school’s recycling efforts have improved that much. Your organics dumpster [ 2 yd3, picked up 1x weekly ] is typically overflowing at pick-up. Congratulations for filling your organics dumpster to its capacity. Dumpster disposal fees are charged based on size so underutilized dumpsters cost the district extra. Increasing to a bigger organics dumpster is perfectly fine if your school’s recycling efforts have improved that much. Summary of Recommendations -Implement organics collection during breakfast as well. -Collect restroom waste (paper towels) for organics recycling rather than as trash. -Establish a school-wide set-up that best promotes recycling in classrooms: -Post up signs/posters by containers to differentiate recycling from trash. -Position trash and recycling containers together to promote sorting. -Place containers in prominent locations, such as by doors or teachers’ desks, rather than scattered around. -Limit the amount of containers in class rooms—one recycling and one trash should suffice. If your school needs to modify its hauling schedule / dumpster size or access additional materials to make your waste management/recycling program successful, please contact your Plant Operations Supervisor. For questions regarding the audit and audit report, please contact Andre Xiong. Andre Xiong MN GreenCorps School Waste Prevention Specialist Hennepin County Dept. of Environmental Services 417 N. 5th Street, Minneapolis, MN 55401 phone: 612-543-1316 email: andre.x.xiong@co.hennepin.mn.us Appendix / Sources 1 Monthly waste generation data was provided by MPS contract hauler, Allied Waste Services. Data on dumpster sizes and hauling schedules were also obtained from Allied. 2 Student enrollment numbers were obtained through MPS student account, available to the public online. Staff enrollment numbers were obtained through payroll. 3 Allied Waste estimates one cubic yard of trash weighs approximately 100 lbs. 4 Ginny Black, from MN Pollution Control Agency, estimates approximately 50% of organic waste remains as finished compost after decomposition. 5 It was decided upon to use 32% as the figure for organic waste composition of total waste generated at schools. The study was conducted in southern California by California Integrated Waste Management Board for 2002. 6 Calculations: Monthly haul charge = [ $1.90 X dumpster size (yd3) X frequency of pickup in a week ] X 4 weeks (month) Processing fee = processing rate X weight (tons) Total cost = monthly haul charge + processing fee + tax Savings incurred from recycling = total cost (gross weight) ▬ total cost (trash weight) 7 Audit procedures: o Audits were scheduled for 1 hour and included: 1. Interview with head building engineer 2. Interior walkthrough 3. Contamination assessment 4. Exterior walkthrough o Audits were conducted by Hennepin County Environmental Services’ GreenCorps member; alongside an Allied Waste representative and the Plant Ops supervisor for that site. o Questions during audit were answered based on head engineers’ observations and perceptions. o Walk-through portion of audit consisted of observing (as needed): 2 hallways (or other common areas) 3 classrooms 1 bathroom Cafeteria Dumpsters o Contamination assessment portion of audit consisted of visually assessing: 2 bags of trash 2 bags of mixed recycling 2 bags of organic waste 8 Not all schools were able to supply samples for contamination assessment due to various reasons. In such cases, samples were attained in these other manners (where possible): Observing bags already disposed of in dumpsters Observing un-bagged waste in dumpsters equivalent to bag Observing active containers on the floor Clarification on contaminants: Non-recyclable paper include: food-soiled paper, napkins, paperware, milk cartons. Non-recyclable plastics include: shrinkwrap, plasticware, food containers. Cardboard is allowed in single stream collection, so it is categorized with ‘paper’ for our purposes. Food waste is only considered a contaminant in trash where organics recycling is in place.