We’re #1! UofL Wins the Campus Race To Zero Waste
For the 12th year in a row, the University of Louisville took on the competition in the North American Campus Race to Zero Waste, from January 31st to March 26th, 2022. As a part of Ecolympics 2022, students, faculty, and staff were encouraged and incentivized to take green actions and share them with others. Full Results here.
-
In the Diversion category, UofL had our best year ever, finishing #1 among large universities! Out of all 103 schools, UofL finished #8 in the nation, #1 in the ACC, and #1 in the state, with an overall Recycling Rate of 63.438%!
- In the Per Capita Classic, we almost doubled the pounds recycled per person from 2021, having recycled 8.887lbs/person, blowing past all the other state schools for a 1st place finish in Kentucky and a national ranking of 54th.
- In 2022, as our new customer-facing composting collection system in UofL Dining continues to grow and mature, UofL continued to dominate in composting, finishing 1st in Kentucky and 17th in the country in the Food Organics category, improving our score to 70.50 points.
- In the all-important Waste Minimization category, UofL back-slid a bit from 2021, with total waste production up a bit to 21.96 lbs/person over 8 weeks. That’s still less than one-third the waste per capita that University of Kentucky produced during the competition!
- In 2022, UofL got serious about eWaste Recycling and joined forces with the UofL eSports Team for a month-long eWaste Collection Drive that brought in 11,050 lbs. of electronics for recycling, or 0.46 lbs/person! That landed us 9th in the nation for total weight, and tied with EKU in 10th place for per capita eWaste recycling.
- Together, all 200 schools involved in the 2022 competition donated, composted and recycled 27.9 million pounds of waste, preventing the release of 30,288 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent into the atmosphere, which is equal to avoiding the annual emissions from 6,376 cars!
Congratulations to all our 2022 Ecolympians who made this incredible accomplishment possible!
