Materials and waste management

2050 vision

We are minimizing waste by buying less and optimizing the full life cycle of materials entering and leaving our campuses, such that recoverable material is not wasted. Through education, collaboration and innovation we lead by example ensuring responsible operation of our facilities to minimize our ecological footprint and maximize resource potential.

Actions

Flagship action: Form working group

MW1 Flagship action: Form a University-wide materials and waste reduction working group.

Waste prevention, sorting challenges and infrastructure vary widely across campuses, buildings and operational units, making it difficult to achieve consistent progress without a coordinated approach. This working group will bring together representatives from across campuses and units to identify shared challenges and prioritize actions that reduce waste and improve capture of recyclable and compostable materials. Waste data will guide the group in prioritizing the highest-impact projects.

In addition to traditional waste streams such as recycling, compost and landfill, the working group will also explore opportunities to address nontraditional or event-based waste streams not typically captured in the standard three-stream (recycling, compost, landfill) waste infrastructure. Examples may include items such as graduation caps and gowns, promotional materials and UW branded swag, and other high-volume materials associated with campus events and programs.

Timeline: Launch working group by the end of FY29

2026-2027 - Begin recruitment for the working group including waste and sustainability representatives from each campus, additional faculty, and student groups.
2028 - Launch working group and develop priority actions to reduce waste across the University. Identify appropriate metrics to track progress.

Tracked metrics:

Status of working group formation

Campus connections: The Working Group will include representatives from each campus.

Lead partners: UW Recycling, UW Medicine, Housing & Food Services, UW Bothell Grounds and Sustainability, UW Tacoma Custodial and Maintenance

Funding needs: Oversight for the formation and the continuous development of the working group will require staff time from UW Recycling.

Replace single-use healthcare products

MW2: Identify opportunities to replace single-use healthcare products with reusables or environmentally preferable alternatives.

UW Medicine has a strong track record of reducing waste and costs through sustainable procurement and operational changes. Since 2018, its single-use medical device reprocessing program has generated more than $27 million in savings and diverted over 750,000 pounds of material from the landfill. UW Medicine’s additional efforts include a transition to environmentally-preferred facial protection products, reusable sharps containers, and expanded composting and recycling. These combined efforts have saved more than $430,000 annually, improved operational performance, and reduced the amount of waste sent to the landfill.

This action will support UW Medicine’s continued efforts to reduce waste and cost by increasing utilization of reusable products and environmentally-preferred products, where practical and feasible. By scaling-up this existing work, UW Medicine is on track to achieve meaningful reductions in product consumption, landfilled waste disposal and cost while maintaining excellence in patient care. Lessons learned through this targeted approach will help inform the potential for integration into standard practices.

Timeline: Complete by the end of FY30

2027 - Collect baseline information for selected items, including preliminary cost, waste and operational impacts. Engage UW Medicine purchasing staff and sustainability partners on an approach to identify alternatives and/or areas of opportunity.
2028 - Pilot implementation for at least one priority item.
2029 - Expand or refine implementation across remaining priority items and evaluate outcomes to inform future scaling or integration into standard practices.

Tracked metrics:

Number of high-impact single-use healthcare items identified for evaluation and reduction strategies
Pounds of healthcare materials diverted from landfill through reprocessing, reuse or alternative product strategies
Annual cost savings associated with waste reduction strategies for targeted healthcare items

Campus connections: While this action is focused on UW Medicine, lessons from product evaluations, pilots and procurement strategies may inform similar efforts to reduce single-use products across UW campuses, laboratories and clinical settings.

Lead partners: UW Medicine, Waste Reduction working group

Funding needs: Requires staff time from UW Medicine for the analysis and planning of waste reduction opportunities and strategies.

Transition away from single-use products

MW3: Transition away from single-use products through UW’s partnerships with major vendors and corporate sponsors.

The University has already shown that vendor collaboration can deliver results. In dining, Housing & Food Services expanded the OZZI reusable container program to all meal plan holders and added a 50-cent charge for single-use containers to encourage reuse. In athletics, the UW partnered with PepsiCo, Bold Reuse and Aramark to launch a reusable cup program at Alaska Airlines Arena, replacing single-use cups with durable reusables sanitized and returned to service locally. Building on these successes, this action fosters scalable solutions to reduce single-use materials sent to landfill.

In collaboration with key vendors and corporate partners, this action will identify, pilot and evaluate alternatives to specific single-use products that have significant potential for waste reduction. Branded single-use products and giveaways are present in a wide variety of University settings, including dining, athletics and University events. An evaluation of sponsorship agreements and contracts is an important first step to identify potential product swaps. Collaboration and partnership with vendors and sponsors provides a pathway to influence product standards, product selection, packaging and service models. Efforts to pilot new programs will include metrics to evaluate success and feasibility. These might include durability, operational feasibility, user behavior, cost implications and waste reduction.

Timeline: Complete initial single-use product pilots by the end of FY30.

2027 - Meet with internal UW units, large vendors and sponsors to identify opportunities to reduce single-use products and event giveaways.
2028 - Develop a phased plan to test and pilot alternative products.
2029 - Track and document the successes and challenges of pilots. Evaluate potential to continue, expand or try different approach.

Tracked metrics:

Procurement data showing reductions in single-use items
Number of pilot programs created to reduce single-use items (e.g., reusable cup programs, durables at special events or giveaway reuse programs)

Campus connections:

UW Bothell and UW Tacoma will align with UW-wide vendor and sponsor contracts, standards, and guidance to reduce single-use products in dining, events, and campus programming.
Aligns with UW Bothell’s 2026-2036 Sustainability Plan, which calls for eliminating non-essential, non-compostable single-use items at major events by 2036 and reducing plastics in dining and vending by identifying and transitioning single-use items to compostable or reusable alternatives.

Funding needs: Requires staff time from Housing & Food Services and University Marketing and Communications.

Lead partners: Housing & Food Services, UW Strategic Partnerships, UW Procurement, UW Recycling, UW Athletics

Overview

In the development of this new Sustainability Action Plan, stakeholder input highlighted the need to focus more on the sectors that generate large amounts of waste. Across the Seattle campus, UW Medicine accounts for approximately 35 to 40% of landfilled material; laboratories and the Magnuson Health Sciences Center account for about 22%; and residence halls about 16%.

These areas are central to the UW’s mission but they also depend on high volumes of supplies, packaging, food service materials and specialized products that can be difficult to reduce, reuse or recover.

Waste reduction from these sectors requires a strategic approach and cannot rely on individual sorting as the sole strategy. It also requires changes to purchasing procedures, product assessment and selection, collection infrastructure, operational practices and vendor standards. The actions in this focus area aim to prevent waste at the source, improve how recyclable and compostable materials are recovered, expand reuse and surplus pathways, and shift purchasing practices toward products and systems that create less waste.

While data from the Seattle campus provides the clearest picture of the UW’s largest landfill-generating areas, materials and waste management is a tri-campus effort. UW Bothell and UW Tacoma operate within their own collection systems, service agreements and reporting structures. As such, implementation will reflect the local context of each campus. Across all campuses, the goal is to reduce what UW sends to landfill by changing what materials come onto campus and how they are managed at the end of their useful life.