
Less Plastic, More Impact: How Our Alumni Travel Program Is Reducing Single-Use Waste
Stanford Travel/Study, an educational travel program for alumni and friends of the university, is tackling plastic waste trip by trip.
Since 2007, Stanford has competed in the Campus Race to Zero Waste, a nationwide competition for colleges and universities to reduce waste, and has regularly ranked second or first. Over an eight-month period, waste and recycling data is compared amongst over 150 colleges and universities. In 2024, Stanford placed second in both the Per Capita Recycling and the Food Organics categories for large universities, demonstrating its commitment to waste reduction and diversion. This year the competition collectively prevented the release of 23,174 metric tons of carbon dioxide, which is equivalent to the annual emissions from over 5.500 cars.

Stanford Travel/Study, an educational travel program for alumni and friends of the university, is tackling plastic waste trip by trip.

New campus fueling station makes waste operations more efficient and sustainable.

What started as a pilot is now a campus staple supporting food access and waste reduction.