Zero Waste is an initiative that seeks to decrease university waste generation and divert waste products from landfills. The ultimate goal of Zero Waste is just that - to eliminate all waste from landfills, redirecting to either recycling, compost, or reuse. Currently, TCF Bank Stadium is a Zero Waste Stadium, meaning that it aims to divert 90% of its waste from landfills and into organics or recycling. For the 2016 football season, the TCF waste diversion average is over 78%!

Zero Waste is an effort all across campus, in addition to TCF Stadium. This effort is a collaboration between various actors: M Dining, the Recycling department, ReUSE and you!

For example, much of the waste produced on campus is food or food-related. M Dining, the university dining service, seeks to mitigate some of the waste that comes with food production and consumption. It starts in the kitchen: Employees and cooks are trained to minimize waste as much as possible. This means everything from learning how to plan menus efficiently and order suitable amounts of food to cutting produce effectively.  Any waste that does come from food production is carefully weighed and logged, so that food providers can track their progress and maintain constant awareness of how much waste they produce. Proactive awareness and management from the very first stages of production are essential to overall waste reduction.

M Dining also does what it can to minimize waste post-production, too. Containers and serving dishes can create a lot of trash very quickly, so M Dining strives to make sure that its serving dishes are either compostable or reusable. Finally, M Dining holds yearly Weigh the Waste events in residence dining halls, a campaign aimed at increasing students’ awareness of the food waste that they produce, to promote responsible consumption habits and curtail future waste.

Our Recycling department’s job is to manage the waste that is produced on campus. This means providing sustainable options for waste collection. Currently, our university employs the quad system for waste collection: one bin for recyclable cans and bottles, one for newspaper, one for office paper, and one for trash. This system diverts a significant amount of waste that would otherwise go to a landfill. But our recycling system hopes to update the quad system in the future: a bin for all organics (including food and food-related items, such as serving dishes, silverware and napkins), a bin for all paper (newspaper and office paper), a bin for cans and bottles, and one trash that goes directly to the landfill. This system would divert up to 1500 tons of organic material from landfills, saving the university around $120,000 a year!

Finally, the UMN ReUse program is a campus initiative that collects gently-used, unwanted items from around campus and gives them new life. The program collects gently used items from university departments and residence halls, and stores it all in the ReUse warehouse. During the week, university departments can shop at the warehouse to find discounted prices on items they need for classrooms and labs. The warehouse is also open to the public on Thursdays. Finally, each year during Welcome Week the ReUse warehouse packs up its goods and trucks them over to TCF Bank Stadium, where it sets up a Free Store for UMN students. The ReUse program diverts truckloads of perfectly usable items from landfills and trash heaps every year, and gives the items a new home.

What can I do to help?
Here are some ways you can contribute to the Zero Waste goal:

• Be mindful of what you throw away! Take the extra second to put your waste in the correct collection bin, keeping in mind that anything in the trash bin goes directly to a landfill or incinerator.
• Don’t hoard! ReUse director Todd Tanner says, “Don’t save things just because you think you might n
• eed it later.” These items, he explains, sit for months and years until they become outdated and unusable and have to be thrown away. If you rarely use an item, consider donating it so that it can reach its most efficient level of use.
• Use reusable containers! M Dining provides reusable takeout containers for use in the dorms, which can be washed and reused instead of using a new one each time.
• Think about serving sizes when taking or ordering food. Don’t take more than you can eat - you’ll just end up throwing it away.