Reduce Waste
Go for Zero!
Embracing resource responsibility beyond 'reduce, reuse, recycle.'
Striving toward the goal of zero waste saves natural resources, energy, landfill space and creates jobs. Plus, it's the right thing to do. Our zero waste initiatives include promoting reusable containers, composting plant-based products and food waste and recycling on our four campuses.
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More than
a token effort
Reusing your daily food and drink containers makes an impact.
Refill your water bottle at the bubbler instead of buying bottled water. Refill your coffee, tea or soda cup instead of buying it in a disposable cup—and get a discount too! Try a reusable meal container on our Green Bay campus.
Clothes: a Reusable resource
Campus Closets give clothes a new life.
Clothes shopping on a college budget? Our Campus Closets, located on each of our four campuses, may have what you need. Is your closet is overflowing? Share your abundance by donating. The mission of the Campus Closet is to ensure adequate basic needs are met of all students, faculty and staff.
We're Bananas for Compost
Food waste in, nutrient-rich dirt out.
If you live on campus and are interested in composting your food waste, reach out to get a compost bucket, and become part of our growing effort to collect and compost! Annually, we process 64,000+ pounds of food waste from our dining hall and are expanding to collect from housing, offices, and events. That makes a lot of great dirt—and we love to share it with our community. You can schedule a time to pick up free compost.
The Bin and Beyond...
All academic and public buildings on our campuses have recycling bins to separate paper products from other standard recyclables likes cans and bottles. That's a great place to start, but let's not stop there. Just because it doesn't go in the bin, doesn't mean you can't recycle it. Check out these collection spots for recycling specialty items on Green Bay campus and in our four campus communities:
Aerosol Cans
Shaving or whipped cream? Canned Air? Cheeze Whizz? Silly String? We'll take them all! The aerosol can recycling bin is in the Wood Hall Operations Room (WS-101).
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Printer Cartridges
The Green Bay campus mailroom takes all cartridges and toner tanks in clean packaging. We even take new cartridges you no longer use. See cartridge and toner recycling details.
Plastic Film
Plastic bags and plastic wrap can't go in standard recycle bins because they jam the sorting machine's gears. But, Festival Foods, Wal-Mart and Kohl's, with locations near all or our campuses, offer plastic film recycling. Easy enough to drop and shop, right?
Everything else
Search our WI Recycling Markets Directory for places to recycle a range of different items. Use the map to zoom in on recyclers in your area.
Man on a
Mission
"We all need to rethink how to reduce the amount of stuff we throw away...and influence the future of manufacturing and recycling.”
Brent DuBois '01
President and CEO at Logistics Recycling, Inc. / Lamp Recyclers, Inc.
Have Questions?
Contact John Arendt, our Sustainability Director, to discuss your interest, concerns or ideas about sustainability at UW-Green Bay.