Reduce Waste
Energy and emissions changes are not the only considerations to be made when striving to live more sustainably. We also need to consider how we can have a lower impact with what we leave behind as well!
According to the EPA, in 2018 each American created 4.9 pounds of waste per day on average. That’s 1,788.5 lbs per person every year! With food and green waste accounting for 44% on average of waste generated globally, there is so much that we can do to reduce, reuse, recycle, and divert.
Reduce Waste
- Strive toward buying less and choosing options with less packaging (or packaging that is recyclable or biodegradable) for purchases that you make.
- Pre-sort your waste! If you already have your waste sorted in your dorm, it’s much quicker to sort it properly into larger bins (this helps our wonderful facilities staff at the Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) with efficiency and ease as well!)
- Ensure you’re setting food waste aside for compost
- Utilize Middlebury’s Reuse Trailers for stocking up on needs for your dorms and offices and recycling gently-used items at the end of each academic year!
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle (in that order)
- Stock your room with reusable cups, plates, utensils, and cloth napkins; get in the habit of bringing a portable set with you for when you eat on the go
- Bring a reusable mug and you may receive a discount at coffee shops on campus
- Encourage your dorm-mates to recycle and compost. Request more bins, if you need them
- Ditch plastic water bottles (which are packed with microplastics that areand bad for human health as well as being a pollutant!) and carry a reusable one (fill it up at the refill stations around campus)
- Donate office equipment so it can be repurposed or properly recycled
- Before throwing away items, consider whether someone else could use it
- If you’re getting rid of anything (technology, appliances, clothes, etc), consider selling it, donating it or giving it away (https://freecycle.org/ or through your local buy nothing group) or look into how to properly recycle it through Addison County Waste Management
- When you’re ready for a new look, check out this guide to slow fashion and thrifting made by past SSL intern Ella Powers (link to Ella’s series on combating fast fashion and her graphic on local thrift locationswebsites like Freecycle and Facebook groups called “Buy Nothing” or “Everything Free” or Goodwill before heading to a store and help us achieve Zero Waste
Learn how to properly sort your waste
Waste sorting is confusing! With our incredibly diverse community coming from all over the world, sorting waste at Middlebury might be a little different from what you’re used to… Get to know Midd’s guidelines below, but first: an update! You can now recycle pizza boxes on campus (even if they have a little grease on them!)
How Does This Work Connect to the Bigger Picture?
Explore the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
