SNHU has undergone a change in waste management throughout the campus. The Office of Sustainability has been working on a centralized waste management system for a number of years and the SNHU community has started to notice.
The new system is a product of a study the Office of Sustainability conducted to see how much waste the school produces and what it consists of.
“We spent over $250,000 annually just on waste removal. This includes paying the staff to clear the waste bins and replacement bin liners, not even to haul it all away,” said Mike Weinstein, Director of Sustainability.
This spending motivated the decision to switch to a centralized waste management system. The various trash bins previously scattered around campus were at the mercy of not only the waste from SNHU’s facilities but also the trash from various outside sources not affiliated with SNHU.
The hope of this change is to get students and faculty to acknowledge where their trash is going, as well as to save money and time while doing it.
Weinstein and the sustainability team have received feedback from the SNHU community; however, plans to adjust to the new waste management system are still in order.
The major feedback from the SNHU community regards the disappearance of the outside trash bins. This has caused people to litter and feel unaccommodated throughout campus.
In response to this, four bin locations will be brought back and eventually upgraded to paired recycling and trash bins. The locations include outside the Student Center, Dining Hall, Academic Center, and Webster Hall. With these changes implemented, the hope is that groundskeepers and other custodial staff will be able to focus on more pressing issues throughout campus.
For more information, reach out to the Office of Sustainability by email at sustainability@snhu.edu.
