In Spring 2024, as part of Earth Month, a delegation led by the Office of Sustainability toured the state-of-the-art materials recovery facility that processes recycling collected on campus. The group learned about recycling best practices, including:
- Only clean items
- Replace lids and caps on plastic and glass bottles
- Only green, brown, and clear unbroken glass
- Staples can stay attached to paper
- No shredded paper, batteries, or foam (expanded polystyrene foam or EPS)
- No pizza boxes with grease or residue
- Acceptable items include paper cups without lids or straws, food and beverage cartons, paper bags, polypropylene cups (Solo cups), and aluminum foil food packaging
- No plastic bags (human labor must pull these bags off the conveyors and they jam equipment)
Too much food or liquid residue contaminates a receptacle—and it gets tagged for all contents to be sent to landfill.
See what happens to the single-stream recycling materials at this Chicago facility.