Project Title: Loyola University Chicago: Solid Waste Characterization and Opportunity Assessment
Sectors: Higher Education, Caterers, Food Service, Retail
Location: Chicago, IL
Services: Implementation Assistance, Stakeholder Engagement, Fostering Sustainable Behavior, Waste Characterization/Reduction/Management
Background: Loyola University Chicago spans multiple campuses and hundreds of buildings in the Chicagoland area. As part of the university’s planning process towards a zero waste future, Loyola Sustainability Manager Megan Conway reached out to ISTC to plan a waste characterization study or waste audit. The data and recommendations from this study will inform Loyola’s work toward a zero-waste campus.
Approach: ISTC utilizes an “Activity Zone” approach for audits to more accurately analyze data and provide tailored solutions to each zone. At Loyola, the Activity Zones were as follows:
- Academic: Mundelein Center, Phillip H. Corboy Law Center, Center for Translational Research & Education, Quinlan and Flanner halls
- Multi-Use: Damen Student Center, Information Commons & Cudahy Library
- Student Living: Fordham Hall, Mertz Hall, and de Nobili hall
- On-The-Go: Exterior bins on the Lake Shore Campus
The ISTC team conducted walkthroughs of the planned buildings in March and the audit on April 15-19, 2024. During the week of hand-sorting and weighing trash and recycling streams from the selected buildings, the ISTC team and Loyola volunteers compiled data on waste stream composition for a total of nine spaces within four activity zones and two campuses of the Loyola University system. As per the ASTM D5231 standard for processing solid waste, 200-pound samples were targeted as the minimum representative sample weights for both landfill-bound trash and single-stream recycling.
ISTC also assessed contamination levels in 132.3 pounds of compost-bound material collected at the dining facility located in de Nobili Hall.
Over several months, the ISTC team analyzed the audit data, reviewed building walkthrough notes, and compiled a list of recommendations under the following categories. The recommendations were then classified by Activity Zone (Campus-Wide, Academic, Multi-Use, Student Living, and/or On the Go), by Cost Types (Labor, Materials, and/or Services), and by Impact (Low, Medium, or High).
- Infrastructure & Signage: These recommendations encourage clear, standardized, and co-located waste infrastructure, from bin and bag coloring to signage.
- Organics: These recommendations cover large- and small-scale management of organic waste, particularly food waste and compostable consumer products.
- Purchasing: These recommendations address upstream solutions to reduce waste production in labs, food service, printing and more.
- Research & Goal Setting: These recommendations suggest areas for further investigation, such as waste audits that cover different areas and materials not captured in the current study.
- Programming: These recommendations engage the community with regular events and activities such as specialty recycling drop-off points, sharing systems, and reusables.
- Education and Outreach: These recommendations provide topics and methods for teaching the campus community about waste and waste management.
Results : The final report was presented to Loyola staff in early Summer 2024. Highlights included pie charts of each Activity Zone’s trash and recycling stream, an analysis of common items and contaminants, a flowchart of the waste stream at Loyola, and an overview of current waste infrastructure and practices. The report also contained a summary of the audit procedure, data analysis by building, and a table of recommendations.
Loyola’s next steps are putting together a broader Zero Waste Plan informed by this audit data as well as feedback from stakeholders across campus.
The ISTC team is thankful for all the student and faculty volunteers who helped sort, to the grounds team for their hard work hauling waste, and to the workers and managers of Campus Operations and Facilities for their cooperation and insight on waste practices.
Other projects with this client: None at this time.