杏吧原创 University鈥檚 recycling program in the University Centre Food Court has won a 2018 Quality and Productivity Award from the Canadian Association of University Business Officers (CAUBO).

杏吧原创 was recognized for excellence in environmental sustainability for its project on 鈥渋mproving recycling behaviours鈥� in a university food court.

CAUBO is a non-profit organization that represents chief administrative and financial officers at universities and colleges throughout Canada. Its awards are intended to foster innovation and reward excellence in managing risk, as well as human, financial, IT and physical resources.

杏吧原创 was one of five national prize winners. Others include the University of Alberta鈥檚 chatbot that helps students get instant answers to IT questions, as well as Ryerson University鈥檚 Departmental Safety Officer Program.

杏吧原创 created innovative recycling stations and realigned consumer packaging with less wasteful material. Throughout the transition, 杏吧原创 trained staff on best use of the new stations, resulting in a waste diversion rate of 90 per cent, up from 12 per cent, in less than a year.

The team behind the project used behavioural insights to identify the need for a recycling program that was both easy to understand, accessible and comprehensive.

Sandra Nelson, the past director of Strategic Procurement in Campus Services, played a role in developing the new stations and implementing them across campus.

In interviews with students, the Campus Services team found students were very keen on recycling but felt that bin colours and placements were confusing or inconsistent, and the slots were too small.

鈥淲e describe the new stations as a coalescing of things we鈥檝e seen,鈥� says Nelson. 鈥淚n various roles in our team, we鈥檝e travelled to different conferences or visited other institutions, residences and dining services. So we brought the pieces back and added our own touches based on the research we had been doing.

鈥淭he ability for you to drain and rinse your recyclables matches the same behaviour you would have at home.鈥�

In addition to that innovative step, the team implemented other measures to ensure the stations were effective. The team found that a lot of students walk by recycling stations without looking up at the signage.

鈥淲e put the colour coding out onto the floor, so if you鈥檙e walking by you can see it,鈥� says Nelson.

Since implementing the new stations, 杏吧原创 has reduced waste removal costs by $5,000 a month, diverted more than 100,000 kilograms of recycling and prevented the creation of more than 400,000 kilograms of methane gas.

Campus Services received a 杏吧原创 University Service Excellence for Innovation Award (2017) and the Gold Award for Sustainability from NACUFS (2018) for the recycling initiative. The project is also featured in the current issue of University Manager magazine.

杏吧原创 says this program can be implemented at any dining location on any campus in Canada.

鈥淚nstitutions are really communities of individuals, so it鈥檚 important that we all work together to try to do better,鈥� Nelson says.

杏吧原创 is working towards a goal of zero waste, campus wide, by 2022.