STU still isn't measuring campus waste

We produce about 3.5 million tons of plastic and other solid waste around the globe each day. The United States is the king of trash, producing a world-leading 250 million tons a year, roughly 4.4 pounds of trash a person a day. Each Canadian produces almost nine thousand pounds of solid waste per year, making Canada one of the most wasteful nations in the world.

St. Thomas University conducted an environmental audit in the 2010-2011 academic year, but campus waste was not measured.

In that same year, the university purchased about 3,650,000 sheets of white paper and 98,500 sheets of coloured paper.

Almost a decade later, STU is still not measuring campus waste. And we know we're producing lots of it.

A group of students from the Environmental Praxis course at STU started a project last year to see how much food was wasted in the meal hall. About 30 pounds of food was wasted each day in the meal hall between 11:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. from March 13 to 29, 2019.

The University is also billed a flat monthly fee by a private company for emptying the dumpsters. There are currently no campus-wide or municipal composting programs available for organic waste.

The university has a blue box all around the campus to separate bottles and paper. In 2010-2011 Windsor Street houses had composters, but they were under-utilized.