Buildings & Grounds Maintenance

Stanford recycled, composted, and otherwise source reduced 62% of its waste and reduced the amount landfilled to its lowest level in 13 years. The results are cleaner air and water, less pollution, more forested land and open space, and reduced greenhouse gases.

Everyone knows recycling means less trash going to our landfills but the greatest environmental benefit of recycling is the conservation of energy and natural resources and the prevention of pollution that is generated when a raw material is used to make a new product.

Recycling at Stanford Conserves Energy

The paper, glass, metals, plastic, and organic material Stanford recycled in 2011 saved a total of about 57,951 million BTUs of energy; enough energy to power nearly 551 homes for one year.

Producing products using recovered rather than raw materials uses significantly less energy which results in less burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas.

Recycling at Stanford Reduces Air and Water Pollution

Last year, recycling reduced overall air emissions by 104 tons excluding CO₂ and methane or 4579 tons including CO₂ and methane and reduce waterborne waste by 17 tons.

By decreasing the need to extract and process raw materials from the earth, recycling can reduce or eliminate the pollution associated with material extraction and processing.

Recycling at Stanford Reduces Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Stanford’s recycling efforts last year reduced greenhouse gas emissions by about 3820 metric tons of carbon equivalent (MTCE), equivalent to taking 2882 cars off the road per year.

By reducing air and water pollution and saving energy, recycling offers an important environmental benefit: it reduces emissions of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and chlorofluorocarbons, that contribute to global climate change.

Recycling at Stanford Conserves Natural Resources

By recycling over 1338 tons of paper last year, Stanford saved 32,115 trees. Stanford reduced the need for 414 tons of iron ore, coal, and limestone by recycling over 206 tons of ferrous scrap metal.

By using recycled materials instead of trees, metal ores, minerals, oil and other raw materials harvested from the earth, recycling-based manufacturing conserves the world's scarce natural resources. This conservation reduces pressure to expand forests cutting and mining operations.

Waste Generation Increases

In 2010, Americans generated about 250 million tons of trash and recycled and composted 85 million tons of this material, equivalent to a 34.1 percent recycling rate. On average, we recycled and composted 1.51 pounds of our individual waste generation of 4.43 pounds per person per day.

The state of the economy has a strong impact on consumption and waste generation. Waste generation increases during times of strong economic growth and decreases during times of economic decline. To learn more about waste generation in the US see the US EPA report Municipal Solid Waste in the United States: 2010 Facts and Figures Executive Summary

This data is taken from Stanford University's Recycling and Solid Waste Report 2011 and fed into the National Recycling Coalition's Environmental Benefits Calculator. See the NRC Calculator Model here.