This document summarizes Harvard University's efforts to reduce waste and increase sustainability in its dining services operations. It discusses initiatives like composting food waste, conducting food waste audits, donating usable food, implementing a reusable mug program, and partnering with off-campus composting facilities. The results of these efforts include a significant reduction in the amount of waste produced per capita on campus between 1989 and 2011, from 600 pounds to 307 pounds, by increasing recycling and composting rates.

1. Zero Waste Partnerships with
Campus In-House Dining Services
Rob Gogan
Recycling and Waste Services
Harvard Facilities Maintenance Operations
175 North Harvard Street
Allston, MA 02134
rob_gogan@harvard.edu
http://www.uos.harvard.edu/fmo/recycling/
MassRecycle R3 Conference
19 March 2013

2. •Historic campus laid out on ox trails and Indian paths in 1636, first in Anglo
America—no back alleys, few loading docks, few dumpsters allowable
•500 buildings on 600 acres in Cambridge, Boston and Watertown
•Urban setting in most densely populated part of metro area of 3.5 million
•25,062 FTE students + 16,114 FTE faculty and staff + 2,000 contractors (2010)
•Built on Charles River flood plain with low elevation
•$32 billion endowment 2010, biggest in U.S.
George
Washington slept
here.
Continental Army troops
barracked here in 1775 &
recycled roof flashing into
bullets for the Battle of
Bunker Hill.

3. Presidential Commitment to Waste Reduction
Greenhouse Gas reduction: “30%
below 2006 level by 2016”
Former US VP Al Gore ’68
helps Harvard President Drew
Faust announce Greenhouse
Gas Commitment, Oct 2008
Community Service for students:
summer housing & board
offered to any student pledging
to work 30 hours per week as a
member of Harvard Habitat for
Humanity “Stuff Sale” team to
recover student books, clothing
and dorm furnishings for resale
Sustainability Principle #1: “Harvard
University is committed to continuous
improvement in demonstrating
institutional practices that decrease
production of waste … both in
Harvard’s own operations and in those
of its suppliers.

4. RecycleMania:
What’s in your trash?
Food Service Organics Recovery, Week 1, 2013 Competition
MASSACHUSETTS
Institution Rank Lbs per
capita
Harvard University 16 1.908
Boston College 34 0.791
Boston University 42 0.624
Worcester Polytechnic Institute 42 0.624
Suffolk University 54 0.434
Emerson College 55 0.406
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 64 0.315
Stonehill College 74 0.224
Worcester State University 85 0.177
Massachusetts Maritime Academy 111 0
Tufts University 111

5. • Basic Recyclables recovered: 25% 3,677 tons
• Recovered for Composting: 23% 2,943 tons
– Landscape (31%); Food scraps (59%); Animal bedding (15%)
• Other recycling: 8% 1,101 tons
• Trash: 45% 6,719 tons
– Est 20% of trash is food scraps, thus about 9% of total waste stream is food
scraps which are not currently recovered for composting.
• Total refuse 14,440 tons
• Per capita trash 361 pounds
• Per capita recycling 415 pounds
• Average per-plate food scraps: < 2 ounces
Harvard Campus Refuse, 2012
Source: Vendor supplied scale weights, volume-to-weight conversions using WasteWise standards

6. MARKED RED EARTHENWARE excavated and identified by Professor Christina
Hodge; Harvard’s first Dining Commons as it might have looked in 1640.
Bevis, A. M. Diets and Riots: An Interpretation of History at
Harvard University. Boston, MA: Marshall Jones Company, 1936.

7. Echoes of ancient student zero waste practice: Devon Newhouse ‘13 with her
Harvard-issued mug. Note initials, like those of her ancient forebears
excavated from Harvard Yard in 2011 by students of Anthropology S-1130
Professor Christina Hodge. Photo by Annie Baldwin

8. Waste audits
• Measure what’s
actually in campus
trash
• Show students that
food and recyclables
are still wasted
• Chart progress from
year to year

9. Reusable mug program
Lessons learned:
•Do not just give to everyone—make recipients pledge to use mugs
•Get sponsorship from Dean of Students, Dining and Sustainability
•Fill mugs with ice cream!
•Allow students to drop off mugs for washing & pick up clean next day on mug tree
•Offer different colors of mugs
•Give discounts for using mugs in retail outlets
•Remove single-use cups from display—reduce cup consumption by > 100,000 monthly

10. Food Waste Audit charts drop in
HUDS post-consumer food scraps
Per plate waste drop: from 5 ounces/meal to <2 ounces/meal

11. Food Waste Reduction Opportunities
--Donation of Servable Meals (e.g. “Food for Free,” UniLu
Homeless Shelter, Lovin’ Spoonfuls)—no liability due to Good
Samaritan Act of 1996
--Back of the House, e.g. “TrimTrax”
software, buying pre-trimmed food
--Peer education: Food Waste Audits, “Clean
Plate Club;” cut per plate food waste
--Compost on site, e.g. HLS BioGreen 360 to
Organic Landscape Services
--Haul away compost to commercial facility; clean food scraps:
$80/ton; “dirty” food scraps $130 /ton; trash $92/ton

12. Composting replenishes campus soils
Decomposed remnants of plants and foods created through the
management of heat, moisture, and aeration

13. Compost Tea
Specific liquid biological amendment made by coaxing the beneficial
organisms from composted landscape waste into an aerated water
solution with various food sources.
Below: T Fleischer, Wayne Carbone, compost tea brewer. Photo by Mike Conner

14. Organic Landscape Maintenance

16. Pick-up & Commercial Composting Off-campus
•Many farmers do not want
“compostable” flatware, even if
certified by BPI
•Prepare to pay more to deliver
compostables which include
serviceware
•Try to find local sites to receive
food scraps, or at least find ways
to incorporate composted food
scraps into local soils

17. Harvard Recycling, 1989-2011
1989 2011
• Trash tonnage 10,800 6,301
• Recycling 52 4,590
• Compost 0 3,187
• Per Capita trash (est) 600 lbs 307 lbs

18. He said to His disciples, Gather up
now the fragments (the broken
pieces that are
left over), so that nothing may be
lost and wasted.
New Testament, John 6, verse 12

19. With good planning, infrastructure, partnerships
and peer marketing…

20. …even old John Harvard can learn how to be green while
conserving natural resources, helping feed his neighbors and
replenish local soils.