Technically, it seems to me that passing over surplus items should be counted as 'Re-use', and not 'Recycle'.. My answer roots from observing the difference between the two terms. Typically, re-use is when items are used by another individual for the same purpose before the item goes totally 'useless' (e.g.: elder brothers passes on not-so-trendy T-shirt to younger brother.. another Ron Weasley..) or if it is used for a purpose other than originally intended, e.g: couple of years later, the younger brother uses his now ragged T-shirt to mop the sink... I know, sounds extreme - but that's re-use; not recycling..

Recycling would usually include re-processing of the diverted material into raw materials which are then used to form new products which are packaged again and enter the market for another buyer... like old plastic bottles and carpets that are shredded and reforged into new carpets.. Recycle or re-use, in either case, the stuff is being used again before it to the grave (landfill).. for a short amount of time - a few human years is less than a blink for Mother Earth.

Which is why I am completely surprised at the numbers - 400 Tons per year! No wonder Annie Leonard says what she says in The Story of Stuff.. Is this planned obsolescence, or perceived obsolescence? Is this normal at all universities/ colleges with active sustainability programs?

We don't count surplused items as recycled. I don't believe doing so would accurately represent actual waste reduction. If we did, I'm pretty confident that we'd be well, well over 400 tons a year. This university sends a tremendous amount of stuff to surplus, including full-size trucks, old refrigerators, heavy industrial equipment, even an old Piqua baler. If we measured the weight of everything, I'm guessing it would more than double our percentage, easily. On that note, maybe recycling numbers should be more narrowly defined to reveal how well we're doing in recycling packaging of consumable goods, in other words, things that are so easily tossed in the trash without a second thought. Bottles, paper, cans, etc. We include scrap metal recycling in our totals and yet that requires practically no education or monitoring because all of our trades people understand the monetary value of metal. We have a separate dumpster set up with a local metal recycler and there's simply never a question about what goes in or why it's necessary, and yet to include how much scrap metal we're recycling feels to me like padding the numbers. And, in following the previous post, what actually happens to all that stuff you send to surplus? Here, buyers have to sign a form stating that they won't dispose of the item in an unsafe way, but who's to stop someone from taking the one good item off a purchased pallet of miscellaneous items and then dumping the rest?

If I understand correctly, I think these materials should be included in the diversion rate calculation for STARS OP Credit 18: Waste Diversion. Specifically, it says "Materials diverted from the landfill or incinerator include any solid waste that was destined for disposal in a municipal waste landfill or incinerator but was diverted by recycling, composting, donating, re-selling, or reusing."

In my recollection, we designed the credit this way because reuse is generally regarded as preferable to recycling and there was a desire from stakeholders to make sure that reuse efforts were supported and recognized in STARS. Since participants can continue to get more points as they increase their diversion rate, this approach doesn't let schools off the hook for making efforts to divert their other regular waste.

This conversation is making me think though that the STARS credit might be improved by at least having the amount of material that is composted, recycled, resold etc be reported in separate categories rather than a single lump sum as in the current version. That would assist users who want to dig a little deeper and would enable more detailed benchmarking.

Best,

Julian

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Julian Dautremont-Smith
MBA/MS Candidate, Class of 2012
Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise
Stephen M. Ross School of Business | School of Natural Resources & Environment
University of Michigan
http://www.linkedin.com/in/juliandautremontsmith

I agree with Julian, we do not call it a recycling rate, in our reporting we say "Pacific diverted an estimated 57% of its generated waste from the local landfill." That included the 300 planter pots we just gave back to the nursery because they were considered generated waste to us.

We pushed over 2,000 tons of material through our surplus operation last year. I think it needs to be counted to some degree as our mission is to push items through the Surplus Store before they hit recycling. In many cases it would be more cost effective to just recycle items rather than try and reuse them. Take books for example. Why shouldn't we get credit for books sold that were pulled out of the recycling stream? We also salvaged metal, plastics, glass and all sorts of other items. I have 2,500 dorm desks I'm giving away right now as we've saturated the market over the past 10 years and there is no resale value. If I can give them away (at our labor expense) as opposed to landfilling them, how is this not waste reduction? On the other hand we should not count 3 year old passenger vehicles that we are selling. I'm not sure what the dividing line is here. If our Surplus operation didn't exist there would probably be another 1,200 tons of material going to the landfill each year. This is waste reduction.

Hi Nick,

This may seem like a non-sequitur, but it is directly relevant to the thread topic, just in a big picture way. While extremely delighted that post-consumer waste reduction/diversion efforts are claiming innovative mindshare, I am shouting from the rooftops to bring focus on rate of landfill contribution to the fold. If we reduce the frequency of used furniture headed out the door, we automatically reduce the amount as a whole. This concept is enabled by incorporating stringent lifecycle criteria to the total cost of ownership valuation (in the pre-procurement qualification phase). In our line of consulting work with colleges, we know millions of dollars are commonly spent on furniture with minimal regard for anything beyond initial purchase price. Shrinking budgets exacerbates this practice, and the result is a disposition scenario every 5-10 years instead of every 25-30. The paradox and reality is that the "saved" money is actually then spent on upkeep, repairs, downtime and related costs, not to mention the financial/labor resources to manage the surplus program - again, every 5-10 years.

I know this doesn't answer the STARS credit question, but as Julian's post suggested, maybe it might prompt categorical changes and open doors to even greater benchmarks.

If you are interested in an article written by us on this practice, please email me to request a pdf. You can also view it in the June issue of College Planning & Management (page 53) here: http://collegeplanning.epubxpress.com/link/copm/2011/jun/1?s=0

Best,
Leanne

Leanne ,

Thanks so much for the link. Our surplus operation has grown 800% over the past 10 years. This gives me some good information to help explain why. I don't think we are anywhere near 30 years now. Maybe 5-10 as you mentioned above.