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Waste Reduction & Recycling

At Work

Use China and Flatware for Catered Events–Catered events across campus are served on china, free of charge. So unless your event really needs to have paper products, feel good that you're helping the environment while having a good time.  

Print and Copy on Both Sides–Make double-sided printing a habit and you'll instantly reduce your paper use and waste by 50%. If you do not have a duplex printer you can manually print on both sides by printing all the odd numbered pages then putting these sheets back into the printer and printing the even numbered pages. For help, contact the Help Desk x3911.  Reuse the blank side of already-printed paper; you can print draft and internal documents on the blank side. Or use the blank side as scratch paper. Read more at The Life of Paper.

Reduce Lunch Waste–When bringing your own lunch, bring food in a reusable container. Reusablebags.com sells a Wrap-N-Mat for sandwiches, bamboo utensil set in an attractive fabric pouch, a lightweight steel food carrier and aluminum boxes with snap-on lids. When eating out, either chose a restaurant where your meal is served on a reusable plate/bowl with reusable utensils or, if getting food to go, bring your own reusable container.

Reduce Paper Towel Waste–Use one paper towel to dry hands at a public restroom. Even better, dry your hands on your pants.  At home, use a rag or sponge (both being washable and reusable) in your kitchen for cleaning instead of paper towels.

Carry Your Own Beverage Container–Water and tea drinkers can carry their drinks from the home or office in attractive, lightweight plastic, steel, or aluminum bottles instead of disposable plastic bottles.

• Drip coffee drinkers AND tea drinkers pay only $1 for any size when using their own mug at the Mind & Hearth.
• Use the coffee waste calculator to learn how many pounds of cups you send to the landfill annually.
• Learn the truth about bottled water.

While Shopping

Choose to Reuse–When you need to buy something, look first for the item in a second-hand store before buying it new. Buying used supports local non-profits and reduces the demand on natural resources to manufacture goods.

Spokane has plenty of well-stocked thrift stores and consignment stores. BarterBee is a website where you can turn in your old games, movies and music for points and use those points to buy other games, movies and music that other people no longer want.

Bring Cloth Bags to the Store–Using your own cloth bag instead of plastic or paper bags reduces carbon dioxide emissions, energy consumption, litter, and pollution. Learn more: Paper vs Plastic, Environmental Effects of Plastic Bags. Buy a sturdy, reusable bag from a thrift store, a cloth bag from your grocery store or buy a fashionable and functional bag online. Bringing your own bags to the grocery store will reduce your carbon-dioxide emissions by about 17 pounds of a year. And most stores will give you 5 to 10 cents per reusable bag used.

Buy Goods with Minimal, Reusable or Recyclable Packaging–Less packaging could reduce your garbage by about 10% and your carbon dioxide output by up to 1,200 pounds per year. About 9% of the cost of a box of cereal is for the cereal — the other 91% of the cost is for the package and advertising. Look for single layers and materials in packaging, for example, choose a plain paperboard box instead of molded plastic. Buy the largest size that is practical (read: buy only what you can use before it spoils) as the economy size uses less packaging than multiples of the small size.

Pass on the Paper–Americans send about 43 million tons of paper products to landfills every year. Try some simple switches, such as using cloth napkins at home, cleaning with a rag or sponge instead of paper towels, and using a ceramic plate instead of paper plate. Kick the one-time disposable habit and replace it with a many-times reusable habit. 

Email a Birthday or Holiday Card–Instead of mailing a card made from paper for birthdays and holidays, e-mail an interactive card with music. Some of the most popular free electronic card web sites are 123Greetings, Hallmark and Regards. 

Donate Unwanted Stuff–If you have unwanted items in your office, complete a work order so that Facilities Services can pick them up. At home, donate clothing, household items, and furniture in good condition to a thrift store when you are ready to upgrade. Discover Spokane's thrift stores.

Swap Your Paperback Books–PaperBackSwap is a national paperback book exchange club.

Buy Rechargeable Batteries–Not only do you end up spending less buying rechargeable batteries, you also reduce waste. That's win-win.

Gift Giving–While "the thought" counts most when giving a gift, making the gift comes in a close second. Start out by shrinking your carbon footprint when you make the gift. And then, instead of using one-time use wrapping paper, use unique and reusable wrappings. For instance, use last year's calendar pictures or an old poster for creative gift wrap. Click here for other ideas.

Reduce Junk Mail Waste–Go to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse to learn how to have your work and home address removed from mailing lists. To have former employees removed from mailing lists, sign up for the EcoLogical Mail Coalition's FREE service. The EcoLogical Mail Coalition will provide this information to direct mailers, so those names can be removed from their mailing lists.

Buy a Water Filter Instead of Bottled Water–Scientific studies show that bottled water is no safer than tap water, and is often less safe, sometimes containing high concentrations of toxins like arsenic and mercury. 1.5 million barrels of oil in the US alone are used to make water bottles, 86% of which are land filled or incinerated. Bottled water is transported long distances burning massive quantities of gasoline and green house gases.

Trashing Trash

Recycle Cans, Bottles and Paper

• Only about 50% of all aluminum cans are recycled each year. The other 50% means a wasting of 13 billion gallons of oil that could have been saved if they were recycled. Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to operate a TV for 3 hours.
• For every ton of paper recycled, 60 pounds of pollution is not emitted into the air and 17 trees are not cut. Reach for the recycling bin instead of the garbage when getting rid of waste.
• Every day 40 million plastic bottles are thrown away or became litter; this is unfortunate because American plastic recyclers need these bottles.

Recycle Cell Phones–Before you toss your old cell phone, consider recycling it through GRC Wireless Recycling. They use your donation to fund nonprofits, schools, and community groups.

Recycle Printer Cartridges–Did you know that your printer cartidges can be used up to 50 times before begin thrown away? Or did you know that the plastics in these cartidges contain toxins that harm the environment? All inkjet, laser, printer, toner, and copier cartridges can be sent via campus mail for recycling to Terry Norton, Information Systems.

Recycle Used Batteries–All batteries (alkaline, 9-volt, nickel-cadmium, lithium-ion, button cell, watch battery, and cell phone batteries) are collected for recycling at Whitworth University's Facilities Services office. Send them through campus mail to Marisha Hamm, Facilities Services.

Learn how to recycle more materials--used motor oil, flourescent light bulbs, for example--by calling Facilities Services at 509.777.3254.