Stanford’s programs to reduce waste and your efforts to properly sort won us first place in the Food Organics category and second place in the Per Capita Recycling category for large campuses in the 2023 Campus Race to Zero Waste! This demonstrates your commitment to take actions every day to reduce waste going to landfill and reinforces Stanford’s commitment to being a leader in sustainability.
The 2023 competition reached 3.4 million students, faculty, and staff across 200 colleges and universities, diverted 29.4 million pounds of waste through donations, recycling, and composting, and kept 205 million single-use plastics out of the landfill. This prevented the release of over 29,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent into the atmosphere, which is equal to the annual emissions from 6,128 cars! Proper sorting makes a difference; thank you for your efforts!
Over the last 30 years, Stanford has increased waste diversion to 65% by recycling paper, bottles and cans, yard trimmings, food scraps, wood, and construction and demolition debris. The university has also reduced the amount of waste sent to the landfill. In 1998, Stanford landfilled about 14,000 tons of trash. By 2019, that number had dropped to around 9,000 tons.
The university has performed more than 30 waste audits over the past several years, with interesting results. These audits reveal that most of what ends up in Stanford’s landfill bins is not actually landfill at all. Twenty-six percent of the waste is recyclable, and 36% is compostable; it is just in the wrong bin!
During Stanford’s winter waste minimization campaign, the campus reports its diversion and landfill numbers on a weekly basis to the national Campus Race to Zero Waste competition. Stanford’s Campus Race to Zero Waste results have been consistently strong over the years.
Stanford has set a new benchmark for sustainability at live events through its first major concert hosted by Stanford Athletics and Stanford Live. Sustainable Stanford hosted a fireside chat with sustainability leadership from Live Nation and Warner Music Group in tandem with this milestone.
From reducing embodied carbon in construction to piloting organic landscape management, the annual Student Sustainability Symposium highlighted how student-led innovation is driving sustainability at Stanford.
Laura Segura Gonzalez, a second-year design student, is leading jean upcycling workshops to combat fast fashion waste, empowering students to transform old jeans into something new.
