Location
Comstock Memorial Union, MSUM
Document Type
Poster
Event Website
https://www.mnstate.edu/sac/
Start Date
15-4-2025 12:00 AM
End Date
15-4-2025 12:00 AM
Publication Date
4-15-2025
Description
Former MSUM President Anne Blackhurst signed a Commitment to Sustainability in 2021 with a promise to move MSUM toward carbon-neutrality. To work toward this goal, we must understand campus recycling trends, and how we can improve post-consumer recycling at MSUM. Recycling plays an important role in the sustainability of manufactured materials, but between 17-25 percent of all recycling in the United States is improperly recycled. To ensure that materials are correctly recycled at MSUM, we are seeking to understand how cross contamination of trash negatively affects the output of recycling waste. To understand this, we conducted a waste audit in four steps: 1. collecting bags from recycling dumpsters around the MSUM campus, 2. weighing the bags, 3. sorting out the trash within the recycling bags, and 4. weighing the bags post-sorting. We found that the average cross-contamination rate from trash into recycling was 9.4% across all recycling sites on campus. This rate suggests that general improvements to the MSUM recycling system can be made from concentrating on a three key points: combating wishful recycling, understanding and being mindful of recyclable materials, and properly preparing manufactured goods for recycling. With the data collected in this study, the Sustainability Office plans to increase recycling education on campus, through repeated information and increased signage, and better communicate on what can and cannot be recycled on the MSUM campus.
Understanding Waste Stream Cross Contamination at MSUM
Comstock Memorial Union, MSUM
Former MSUM President Anne Blackhurst signed a Commitment to Sustainability in 2021 with a promise to move MSUM toward carbon-neutrality. To work toward this goal, we must understand campus recycling trends, and how we can improve post-consumer recycling at MSUM. Recycling plays an important role in the sustainability of manufactured materials, but between 17-25 percent of all recycling in the United States is improperly recycled. To ensure that materials are correctly recycled at MSUM, we are seeking to understand how cross contamination of trash negatively affects the output of recycling waste. To understand this, we conducted a waste audit in four steps: 1. collecting bags from recycling dumpsters around the MSUM campus, 2. weighing the bags, 3. sorting out the trash within the recycling bags, and 4. weighing the bags post-sorting. We found that the average cross-contamination rate from trash into recycling was 9.4% across all recycling sites on campus. This rate suggests that general improvements to the MSUM recycling system can be made from concentrating on a three key points: combating wishful recycling, understanding and being mindful of recyclable materials, and properly preparing manufactured goods for recycling. With the data collected in this study, the Sustainability Office plans to increase recycling education on campus, through repeated information and increased signage, and better communicate on what can and cannot be recycled on the MSUM campus.
https://red.mnstate.edu/sac/2025/cshe/9