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UK's Mission to Become a Zero-Waste Campus · Talking FACS

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  Welcome to Talking FACS, what you need to know about family,
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  food, finance, and fitness.
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  This nationally recognized, award-winning podcast is hosted by the University
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  of Kentucky Family and Consumer Sciences Extension Program.
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  Our educators share research knowledge with individuals, families,
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  and communities to improve quality of life.
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  Hello, and welcome to Talking FACS what you need to know about family,
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  food, finance, and fitness.
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  I'm your host, Mindy McCulley, Extension Specialist for Instructional Support
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  with Family and Consumer Sciences Extension at the University of Kentucky.
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  We are housed in the Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food, and Environment.
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  In doing my research to get ready to record this podcast, I discovered that
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  zero waste means different things to different groups of people.
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  But essentially, the concepts of reduce, reuse, recycle, repurpose,
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  regift, repair, redesign, along with several other R words around which FCS revolves,
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  such as relationships, resiliency, and responsibility are pretty much at the core of all of them.
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  My guest today, Ryan Lark, who is the Zero Waste Specialist here at the University
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  of Kentucky, and Hardin Stevens,
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  our Extension Associate for Healthy Homes and Communities, are here to share
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  about UK's mission to become a zero waste campus. Welcome to you both.
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  Thank you, Mindy. Yeah, thank you, Mindy. So I'm going to let you all kind of take this away.
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  Ryan, thank you so much for being with us today. I'm really excited to talk
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  with you about UK zero waste efforts.
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  So I'm just going to jump right in. What is UK doing to help the university
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  become a zero waste campus?
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  Yeah, thank you for having me. The university is doing a lot to help reduce
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  waste and increase the amount of waste we're diverting away from the landfill.
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  It's an incredibly important process that we've been striving towards since
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  2018. We have a bunch of different ways we differ from the landfill.
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  So like Mindy said, we always tend to think of the old motto,
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  reduce, reuse, recycle. But it's not just that.
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  Obviously, it's a hierarchy. So what we want to do is reduce the amount of waste we produce.
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  So we have a very strong effort towards reducing waste from the outset.
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  So even at the start of purchasing items, we want to make sure we're purchasing items that are last.
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  We want to buy materials that are reusable, if we can, that are rather than disposable.
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  Obviously, renewables also have to get disposed at some point,
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  unfortunately. but making sure they last more than one use is important as well.
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  So following that, we also want to be focusing on composting and organic waste diversion.
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  So, you know, food waste, yard waste. We have a gorgeous campus here at UK that
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  we're very grateful to have, that we work very hard to have,
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  and we want to make sure that we're not just sending that yard waste and green waste to the landfill.
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  We're actually composting it responsibly, mulching it responsibly,
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  as well as our food waste.
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  And lastly, we have our robust recycling program that we help manage as well.
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  So recycling isn't just the blue bins you see across campus or that you have in your office.
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  It's a very wide operation that we have for batteries, electronics, all kinds of things.
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  Okay. Through these efforts, how
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  has the UK leadership supported those recycling and zero waste efforts?
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  UK leadership and administration have been wonderfully supportive.
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  We are very, very grateful to our leadership for championing and striving for
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  improved sustainability efforts at the university.
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  Previously, we had a sustainability strategic plan, which was part of UK's master
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  plan that I believe expired in 2022. So the plan was through 2022 that had a
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  bunch of different key components.
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  And right now, it's an effort that's signed on by Capilouto.
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  It's got full university support, enterprise-wide, both campus and healthcare.
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  And that, like I said, was through 2022.
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  Currently, we're still working on developing and getting all the approvals we
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  need to put forward our second sustainability strategic plan.
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  It's a kind of our 2.0 document that would be through 2030.
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  Part of that plan, there's five main goals of that plan. The first is making
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  sustainability part of the student experience.
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  So making sure students are working, educating, researching sustainability while
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  they're here at the university.
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  The second one is reinforcing the university commitment to our people.
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  So that's everyone at UK, whether that's patients, whether that's students,
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  whether that's staff or faculty, visitors, etc., etc.
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  Everyone at UK, we want to make sure we're contributing to those people and
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  supporting those people.
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  Decarbonizing our campus, so reducing the carbon emissions of campus operations.
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  The fourth one is modeling environmental excellence. And then the last one is
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  becoming a zero waste campus, which I'm a little biased to say is my favorite
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  one, but that's what we call zero waste.
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  That's kind of an industry term that isn't well-defined across the board,
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  but we've adopted the most common definition of 90% of the waste that it's produced
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  on campus will no longer be going to the landfill.
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  So that'll be going through, it'll be going to a donation, reuse internally
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  or externally, whether that's composting, whether that's recycling or reducing
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  from the outset. So we might even create a first-place reduction.
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  Those are the ways that we're going to become a zero-waste campus.
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  We don't yet have a goal for healthcare, but that is specific to our campus operations.
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  And the UK is incredibly supportive of this. You know, like I said,
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  Capilouto signed our last plan, and this one is no different.
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  We're planning on having him approve it. That way, it gives us a little more
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  teeth to make sure these come to fruition, and we're actually holding ourselves
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  accountable for the goals and initiatives we're putting forth.
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  Wow. Well, I know that is quite a challenge, especially as UK continues to grow
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  and we add more buildings and facilities to help us reach those goals.
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  The recycling program, that's a new challenge for it as well.
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  So thank you for highlighting those. How can we get more involved if someone
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  is interested in being part of that?
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  Yeah, there's a million and one different ways you can get involved.
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  I know the listeners aren't just at UK, so I don't want to pigeonhole ourselves
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  to just UK, but I think the most important thing to do is get educated about
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  what you can recycle and what opportunities are even around you.
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  I didn't even know this until about eight years ago when I started working for
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  the state and doing policy research
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  on waste was that recycling rules are different everywhere you go.
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  I don't know why the thought just never occurred to me, but I'm sure I wasn't even on one.
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  So knowing, people are always saying, oh, recycling is so confusing.
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  I want to demystify that process. Help yourself demystify that process by educating
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  yourself on what opportunities are available and what resources there are to
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  recycle your town or city.
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  So at UK, our rules are different from the city of Lexington.
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  So it's important to know what you can and cannot recycle as well as it's just
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  curbside drop-off location recycling.
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  There's a bunch of different avenues as well. You may have your metal scrap
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  yards. Everyone knows you can take scrap metal to and get paid for.
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  There's all kinds of opportunities that we have available to us.
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  Ryan, why should people care about recycling?
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  You know, you have your regulatory reasons that, you know, it's part of the
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  law. We should put that at least in some level for regulated waste.
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  But, you know, the one most people think of is the environment.
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  Everyone said we should care about the environment.
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  But we care about the environment, so that's why we should care about recycling.
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  And that's absolutely true. The more we recycle, the less materials that we're
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  going to have to extract, create new materials.
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  It's kind of the thought of just using what you already have.
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  But it also saves money, you know.
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  At UK, we do that in the same process as people think of when they pick up a
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  can and take it to a scrap metal recycler.
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  Different recycling at News do save the university and the individual money.
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  As well as recycling supports local Kentucky jobs. I always like to hit that
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  one home because Kentucky is very strong about supporting their fellow people
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  and their fellow Kentuckians.
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  And we have an incredible recycling infrastructure here in Kentucky,
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  specifically aluminum is really strong here in the state.
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  So supporting your local recyclers is supporting your local Kentuckians.
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  I think at UK alone, we support about 10 different facilities.
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  There are different operations that are local to here in Kentucky.
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  I think there's probably about at least a dozen to 50 people at each of those facilities.
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  So I don't know. I don't have a calculator on hand, but you do the math.
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  That's a lot more than all we did was send things to landfill.
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  We're always going to be sending things to the landfill no matter what.
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  So we're always going to be supporting those jobs, but kind of sharing the love
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  and making sure we're supporting everyone's really important.
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  In spite of all that we've talked about today, I know that there are still a
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  lot of people who don't recycle. So why is that?
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  So the first is people don't want to.
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  That's the hardest one to address, but not impossible. I try not to focus on
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  that one because it's a lot of breath and a lot of work and patience to convince
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  those people to recycle.
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  But the biggest one is people don't have access. So really striving to improve
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  access to people is important, not only at UK, but as a state.
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  If you don't have access or if you aren't sure about getting involved with recycling
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  on an individual level or at a business or home level, contact your county solid waste coordinator.
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  Believe it or not, if you haven't heard of that job, that is a job that every
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  county has here in the state.
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  You can Google solid waste coordinator and then insert your county name and
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  your solid waste coordinator should pop up and should have a phone number and
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  email address that you can contact to learn more.
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  The third reason is people don't know how to recycle. They get nervous that
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  they're going to do it wrong.
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  They've heard myths of everything just gets thrown away if you accidentally
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  throw something not recyclable into a recycling bin.
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  So educating yourself on what you should and should not be recycling in your
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  general mix recycling bin, or you have to separate out your recyclables in order
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  to recycle. The fourth one is it's not convenient.
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  That one is a little more difficult to address on an individual or statewide level.
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  Or at UK, we make it super convenient for the people here on campus by making
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  sure the recycling bin is always beside the landfill bin everywhere you go.
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  So if you see a landfill bin, there should always be a recycling bin next door
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  to it. That's within arm's reach.
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  And we always make them blue. So it's easy to color coordinate and so you know
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  if it's a blue container, it's always going to be a recycling bin.
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  And the last reason is you're not really paying attention when you throw things out.
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  So being conscientious of what you're doing as you're throwing things away is
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  happening less said less. Most notably because everyone's on their phone when
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  they're running things away nowadays.
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  Not a judgment just as a fact that we have to address and help make sure our
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  infrastructure responds to that.
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  And what I mean by that is making it so you don't even really have to pay attention to recycle properly.
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  And what I mean by that is, you know, there's a lot of subconscious things that
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  we can do infrastructure-wise to make it so you don't have to think about it to recycle.
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  So at UK, like I mentioned, every single recycling bin is blue.
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  You can just see out of the corner your eye or while you're passing by,
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  you could just, if it's blue, you can toss it in that container.
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  I also really encourage restricted openings.
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  So that's kind of a lid isn't just a big hole on top of the container so if
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  it's recycling bin the best way for our recycling abilities or what we are able
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  to recycle at UK is what we call a Saturn slot opening so a hole with kind of
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  a rectangle through it looks like the rings of Saturn,
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  and the reason we do that is because you know we're kind of using psychology
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  here when people see that slot they know oh bottles cans cups those can all
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  go in that circular slot paper cardboard, you know, on that,
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  you know, vertical slot, that horizontal slot.
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  So kind of use some psychology to get people to recycle when they,
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  you don't have to even have to have a sign there.
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  You'll automatically, intuitively know that things, those items should be recycled
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  in that thing instead of just the landfill container.
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  So I just want to mention those, if you're looking at getting a container for
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  your home, even maybe that's a good option for you.
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  Just maybe, I know my partner at home, even though they're with someone who
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  supports recycling a lot, but sometimes forgets what's recyclable.
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  That's always asking me. So having that for, you know, for your family or whatever
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  it is, could be beneficial to any precinct. How much you're recycling at home or wherever you are.
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  Ryan, what are ways that people can get involved, whether at UK or in their own communities?
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  At UK, I think the best way is, again, to just visit our website to get informed
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  about what is available at UK and what is Recycle at UK specifically.
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  So if you're coming over for a conference or something or just saying hi to
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  someone, maybe visiting for coffee, feel free to look up recyclable.uky.edu
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  or you can just Google UKY Recycling and we'll pop up.
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  Don't Google UK Recycling because United Kingdom will pop up.
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  UKY Recycling should pop up our website and you can learn all about our different
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  recycling or what is and is not recyclable.
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  We should have a nifty new tool where you can literally just,
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  you can type in whatever item you're wanting to throw away or you're curious
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  about and it'll pop up what you should do with that item.
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  So you don't even have to really read through a arduous flyer.
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  You can just immediately get the feedback on what's recyclable.
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  So that should be on the website. Going back to, you know, the making it sustainability
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  part of the student experience, we really try to encourage involvement with
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  students here at UK Recycling.
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  So we have a big, we call them the Big Blue Recycling Crew, which is going to
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  be about 20 students this coming football season.
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  But those applications always come out this summer, every summer for the following,
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  for the upcoming football season.
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  So if you're a student at UK and you want to get involved, that's a wonderful way to get involved.
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  We also offer three student positions for each year, academic year,
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  that come out in the spring. If you're a student listening to this at UK and
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  you want to be in those internship opportunities, look for those applications in late spring.
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  We also, if you're a student or faculty member at UK, we have a brand new sustainable
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  office certification program that I'd love for you to get involved with.
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  So you can, again, just Google UKY Recycling or UK Sustainability and our website,
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  it'll pop up about information, but feel free to get in touch about that.
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  We also have a pop-up thrift shop every spring that we take clothing donations
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  for. So if you have clothing in the area, every February and March,
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  we'll be collecting clothing for that donation.
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  All that will get recirculated to students here at UK or kind of up for a show for them.
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  And of course, our content creator would be very upset. I mean,
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  if I didn't mention our social media handles.
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  So we're at UKYRecycles everywhere. So Instagram, Facebook.
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  Ryan, thank you so much. That's fascinating to know it's more than just aluminum
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  can, that there is so much that can be done.
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  And it's also exciting to hear the steps UK is taking, but also it does sound
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  like there's a lot of possibility growth, if you will, throughout the state.
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  So thank you so much for sharing UK's efforts in this initiative.
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  Thank you again for being with us. Thank you so much.
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  And I thank you both for talking trash with us today on Talking FACS.
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  And if you are just tuning in, you're listening to Talking FACS and we're available
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  Music.