What’s in NMU’s Waste Stream?
SHINE (Sustainability Hub for Innovation & Environment) is establishing a research-informed baseline of NMU’s waste stream. In order to reduce our waste, we first need to know how much and what is in our waste stream. This collaborative project is an effort to establish a baseline and characterize NMU’s waste in order to design a campus-wide campaign to reduce waste. Specifically, this project has four objectives:
- Objective 1: Calculate a monthly estimate of waste produced on campus.
- Objective 2: Determine what percentage of monthly waste could otherwise be recycled or composted.
- Objective 3: Determine what items are most frequently improperly disposed of (e.g., what is contaminating our recycling and what are we sending to the landfill that should be disposed of differently).
- Objective 4: Design an education and outreach campaign to help campus staff and students to simultaneously reduce waste sent to the landfill and increase the amount of recycling and composted waste on campus.
2025 Waste Audit Findings
Of the waste that currently goes into the landfill, 61% could be either recycled or composted.
The average amount of materials within NMU's dumpsters is listed here from the highest to lowest amount.
Recyclables (~54%)
Contaminants (~22%)
Food Waste (~9%)
Hazards (~8%)
Compostables (~7%)
A special thanks to Dr. Jelili Adebiyi, Dr. Jes Thompson, Erin O’Keefe, & Isabella Beck for conducting this research.
This research was funded by the 2024-2025 SISU Waste Audit Innovation Project.