Hi Laura,

If you haven't already done so, I think you need to break down your inventory into different sectors of campus because the process will be different for each.

One quick caveat: I have always kept my campus programs dual stream because I think there is way too much high grade paper and glass in campus recycling programs to justify single-stream. I have found that by prohibiting certain materials (e.g. cereal boxes) most campus "mixed paper" can actually sell as a sorted office pack which is worth about $100 more per ton at the mill than traditional mixed paper. I could never justify why someone would give up that $100/ton difference on 95%+ of their paper, just to save $25-75/ton on the other less than 5% additional paper that you would get by switching to single stream or a lesser grade mixed paper. Even if you don't get the full $100/ton extra, having the higher SOP grade paper will typically mean that you can move your paper in almost any quantity and in almost any market condition without worry.

Anyway, specific to the inventory:

In student rooms

• Make sure all bins on the signed room inventory at beginning of year so students are charged for missing bins just as they are charged for a missing desk or bed.
• 1 trash can. 1-2 deskside recycling bins.

In offices

• 1 trash can. 1 deskside paper bin.
• On room inventory but many schools do not have mechanism to charge for missing bins in offices. We used to track via workorders (workorders to deliver a new bin). Never found a problem with abuse from any office, though I would suggest that you should expect to replace some bins after inter-office moves.

In public areas

• For more info on the value of parallel access and high-aesthetic bins, I'd encourage you to read my blog post
• Better Aesthetics = Better Results.

• High-aesthetic bins in highly visible locations such as Library, arenas, campus center, main lobbies, etc. I like the integrated bins like the ones that Max-R makes (though in the interest of impartiality, there are other brands). In dual stream system, suggest one opening for trash, one for paper, one for bottles & cans.

• For less prominent utility-aesthetic areas, use cluster of bins like Rubbermaid slim jims or one of the Rubbermaid clones.

• I always tracked any inventory via an excel spreadsheet and good communication with the custodial staff in the building. Typically I found that any movement of recycling bins was done within a building when students or professors would have a mini event in class (something small enough that they did not do an event-based workorder - which would have triggered a workorder to deliver more recycling bins), moved the bins from further down the hallway, and forgot to put them back. Good communication with the building custodian usually ensured that the bin got put back without me, or that at least I found out about the bin as soon as it got moved.

For signs, I tried not to use "what to recycle in this bin" signs on the wall because I have had too many instances of the wrong bin being put back under the wrong sign. I prefer stickers or labels directly on the bin.
In residence halls, I would typically add a poster at each central recycling site that explained how the system worked and one that notified students of what to do with "other" materials that we didn't want in either the trash or recycling (e.g. computers).

Hope this helps.

Hi Laura,
We keep inventories of some very large scale things, like the outside front-load dumpsters (unlike Roger, we do have a single-stream system, largely because we send all our waste to our local municipality's MRF and transfer station), and have maps by building of the initial, planned deployment of recycling bins, but keeping the entire system up-to-date is slightly a lost cause, as we find that the bins move and disappear periodically on a semesterly basis.

Basically, we aim to have 2 bins (blue for recycling, black for garbage) labelled in every office/classroom/workspace, and at least 1 pair centrally located in hallways. We do not have some of the high-visibility central "sorting stations" that other schools have, so the signage is also minimal. Because we also found that bins did not stay with signs if the signs were posted on walls, we have "cans" bottles" "paper" decals on the lids of all public area recycling containers.

I have also discovered in our storage numbered bins that were some past co-ordinator's attempts at inventorying, and although they moved so drastically between departments that it seems that person also gave up on the process.

It may depend on the size of your campus and its diversity of function, as Roger proposes: we have over 160 buildings which are serviced by our internal Custodial Services and are actively on the recycling program. Some of these have required very tailored approaches to recycling ,such as cafeterias and dissection labs. (eg, NO recycling bins are provided to anatomy labs, due to the risks involved)

One approach to quantifying the ratio that we did take, however, was in one of our student residences, where we got an independent studies course in Environmental Science to do a site and behaviour assessment of that particular residence hall. The report is up on our website at http://www.pr.uoguelph.ca/sustain/recycling/recyperform.htm.

Hope that helps!
Gillian