The annual recognition was announced at the 2025 Green Schools Conference in Orlando in collaboration with the Green Schools National Network (GSNN). The Green Schools Conference is said to be the only event to unite everyone involved in creating and advocating for green schools. The two-day event provides a platform for the green schools community that inspires and facilitates the movement’s progress.

Anisa Heming, director at the Center for Green Schools, stated:

This year’s Best of Green Schools awardees are individuals and organizations dedicated to improving our schools and creating healthy and resilient learning environments. The awards are an opportunity to spotlight how anyone can make an impact in their community and support students and educators. We are grateful for all those who believe in our mission and join us in achieving it.

Ileana Albareda, executive director at the Green Schools National Network (GSNN), pointed out:

The 2025 Best of Green Schools honorees are proof that sustainability in education is not just a goal, it’s a movement. Their work is transforming schools into healthier, more resilient places for students to learn and thrive. They are part of a growing network of changemakers, and their leadership is inspiring others to take action, push boundaries, and create lasting impact.

This year’s Best of Green School winners represent some of the most engaged individuals and organizations in the green schools movement. In 2024, the Center for Green Schools reached over 600 unique individuals from over 350 school districts at its educational events. It published an online School Health Research Library and several new publications and briefings, including individual school health research highlights, a School District Indoor Air Quality Management Plan Toolkit and executive-level briefings on decarbonization and climate resilience planning.

The awards were presented to organizations or individuals that have worked to move green schools forward in eight categories. This year’s recipients are:

K-12 School: Rochester School

• The campus for Rochester School, in Colombia, was built in 2012 and was designed for sustainability, learning, and health. The school has achieved over 70% energy savings and 40% potable water savings compared to a conventionally-built school of the same size. The campus features a solar aquatic center, intelligent classroom hubs, and other campus features that serve as a living textbook for the curriculum. The school takes pride in graduating students who embody the principles of these innovative systems and contribute to the world’s sustainable future.

 Ambassador: Lauren Click   

• Lauren Click from Arizona is transforming food waste education in public schools. In 2024, Let’s Go Compost expanded from a single school to 111 public schools, 75% of which are Title I. Under her leadership, the nonprofit provides hands-on composting educational tools that make waste reduction education accessible and impactful for students nationwide.

School System: Denver Public Schools

• Denver Public Schools has worked on sustainability initiatives since 2009, focusing on environmental protection, economic prosperity, and social development. The DPS Sustainability Team approaches its work with bold action, innovation, and accountability while engaging students and staff in creating a livable future and thriving learning environments.

 Student Leader: Molly and Emma Weber

• Emma Weber and Molly Weber from Boulder, Colorado, spearheaded a local campaign for climate justice in their school district and later expanded to a statewide movement. They built a network of over 60 students in their school district, won a first-of-its-kind Green New Deal for Schools resolution through their school board, and are currently working with state senators and representatives to pass legislation. Their efforts have focused on implementing sustainable infrastructure, climate curriculum, climate disaster plans, and pathways to green jobs in public schools.

 Business Leader: Texas Disposal Systems 

• Eco Academy, an education program of Texas Disposal Systems, is designed to help minimize waste in Central Texas schools by educating K-12 students about trash, recycling and composting options on their campuses. The program provides training, curriculum, signage and other educational materials for staff, administrators, and students to make recycling fun and enable real-world application. Each school’s participation is documented, and diversion data is made available.

Policy Maker: U.S. Rep. Robert C. “Bobby” Scott and U.S. Senator Jack Reed 

• U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) and U.S. Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) have been steadfast in supporting a federal role that ensures that high-need communities have resources to build and repair healthy, green schools for their students. They introduced the Rebuild America’s Schools Act, which, if passed, would invest $130 billion in school buildings. They have led the way for their colleagues for many years. In 2023, their offices were essential in funding a national clearinghouse for school infrastructure and a grant program to help states serve their school districts better.

  K-12 Educator: Erin Stutzman

• As an educator in the Boise School District, Erin empowers students through community outreach and project- and place-based learning, helping them use their voices to create meaningful change at local, state, and national levels. In collaboration with Nez Perce youth and tribal elders in Lapwai, Idaho, her students have had the opportunity to learn from Indigenous customs and build partnerships around shared environmental goals. Together, they have secured rooftop solar panels through grant writing, advocated for climate action in schools, and supported the nationally recognized Save Our T-Pack initiative to protect Idaho’s wolves.

School District Champion: Darien Clary

• Darien Clary, the director of sustainability at Austin Independent School District, has led efforts to integrate sustainability across 130 facilities, serving 73,000 students and 10,000 staff since 2016. Her work has influenced green building practices, renewable energy, and sustainable food systems, earning recognition in the New York Times and Forbes. She has also authored publications on whole-school sustainability.

For more information and links to individual recipients, visit 2025 Best of Green Schools.

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Peter Templeton, president and CEO, USGBC and GBCI, explained:

PERFORM helps organizations advance sustainability across their real estate portfolios, ensuring every building — regardless of type or starting point — contributes to achieving organizational performance goals. USGBC and the green building community are committed to wholesale market transformation, which means accelerating and scaling measurable performance improvement across the built environment. PERFORM will enable organizations to meet sustainability and regulatory goals while addressing the urgent needs to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions, strengthen resilience, protect human and ecosystem health, and advance equity across all communities.

PERFORM is designed to track and improve sustainability performance of diverse building portfolios, enabling incremental improvements across all owned, occupied or managed assets. Through PERFORM, organizations set their own goals, implement plans and strategies, measure improvement, and communicate improvements to stakeholders. It includes a suite of complementary tools, including:

• Standardized portfolio-wide guidance and assessment to help organizations develop actionable plans, goals and strategies
• Measurement and verification of portfolio-wide performance improvement relative to organizational commitments, including emissions, energy, waste, water and more
• Technical support for existing building portfolios at various levels of performance aligned with their unique organizational goals, strategies and circumstances

PERFORM empowers organizations to bridge the gap between their sustainability targets and actionable, measurable outcomes, particularly in a global context where many companies are looking for tangible ways to demonstrate real progress toward their emissions reductions and sustainability goals.

Recent research by the Financial Times with Smurfit Kappa found that while many organizations set ambitious sustainability targets, they lack robust and actionable plans to achieve those goals.

Additionally, a report by New Climate Institute found that many organizations with corporate net-zero commitments have not meaningfully improved the quality or credibility of their net zero strategies. PERFORM aims to bridge that gap.

PERFORM complements USGBC’s globally recognized LEED green building system, which certifies buildings and projects to a defined, consensus-based, leadership standard. PERFORM works with entire real estate portfolios to help set customized goals, implement plans, measure improvement over time, and verify achievements. In addition to verifying the achievement of energy- and climate-related sustainability goals, the PERFORM program can be used to verify progress and achievements across a holistic set of environmental, social, and resilience metrics.

Sarah Zaleski, chief products officer, USGBC and GBCI, stated:

Organizations that have set portfolio-level sustainability goals to satisfy stakeholders, meet public commitments, and comply with evolving regulatory standards are now looking for pathways to make meaningful and verifiable progress. PERFORM builds on USGBC’s decades of expertise as a market accelerator to partner with organizations around the world to achieve their portfolio goals.

In 2023, USGBC and GBCI launched a Portfolio Accelerator program to test and refine the program to meet evolving market needs. With the input of global portfolio owners, USGBC has established a comprehensive assessment process, including an evaluation of progress against performance commitments, and verification of portfolio-level progress and performance. Program participants include Grubb Properties, Proximity Parks and others.

Zaleski added:

As part of PERFORM, we are expanding our partnerships with Schneider Electric, ClimateFirst, Carbonsight, and Kode Labs to collaborate on data exchange, streamline portfolio-level data and introduce new portfolio-level tools that drive improvement.

In addition, USGBC and GBCI will strengthen partnerships with Measurabl to enhance data sharing for verification of portfolio-level sustainability metrics and with GRESB, Nareit, and ISSP to support organizations in the early stages of their sustainability journey, focusing on guidance and education.

PERFORM, officially known as Arc PERFORM, can be accessed on Arc, a new digital platform and workspace that brings together all of USGBC and GBCI’s products under one seamless, easy-to-use, and intuitive user experience. From the Arc dashboard, organizations can select PERFORM, which provides access to a custom target-setting tool where users can indicate the metrics to be tracked, set targets from their sustainability action plans and existing tracking systems, and submit to GBCI for verification of performance claims, for an additional cost.

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“That value is lost by landfilling,” said Anelia Milbrandt, a senior research analyst in NREL’s Strategic Energy Analysis Center and lead author of a new research paper, “Paper and cardboard waste in the United States: geographic, market, and energy assessment.”

The article, which appears in the journal Waste Management Bulletin, was co-authored by NREL colleagues Jarett Zuboy, Kamyria Coney and Alex Badgett and funded by DOE’s Bioenergy Technologies Office.

The analysis, which relied on figures from 2019, is the latest effort by Milbrandt and Badgett to focus attention on what is clogging the country’s landfills. They previously examined what could be done with food waste disposed in landfills and the mountains of plastic waste tossed in the garbage. The collective goal of these studies is to guide policymakers toward sustainable waste management and to help researchers consider the potential impact of implementing new waste management technologies.

Jarett Zuboy, a markets and policy analyst in the Strategic Energy Analysis Center, stated:

Improved strategies for managing paper and cardboard waste can provide substantial energy, environmental, and economic benefits. To realize these benefits, it’s important to characterize the waste resource comprehensively.

The study maps where cardboard and paper waste has been landfilled.

Of the estimated 110 million metric tons of paper and cardboard waste tossed out across the United States in 2019, approximately 56% was landfilled and 38% was recycled. The rest was burned. This category of waste constitutes about a quarter of municipal solid waste and includes everything from newspapers and magazines to books and napkins, from junk mail and photographs to pizza boxes and milk cartons.

Milbrandt remarked:

The U.S. is one of the world’s top waste producers, and most of it goes to landfills. The energy and resource values of materials put into landfills are lost. We can do better if we want to achieve a circular economy. Through our geospatial analysis, we illustrate “hot spots,” or areas with substantial opportunities to divert paper and cardboard waste from disposal facilities and hopefully stimulate investments in recovering their technical and economic value.

The Southeastern United States had the highest percentage of landfilled paper and cardboard waste, at about 25%. Within that region, as much as 30% of municipal solid waste came from this waste category in Florida and Tennessee.

Zuboy pointed out:

Paper and cardboard waste are among the many things that are used but not used up. Natural resources, money and energy are required to make paper and cardboard products, and after those products fulfill their original purpose, improved waste management strategies can be used to retain some of that value.

Using three-year national average prices for recovered post-consumer paper and cardboard to estimate the market value of landfilled waste, the researchers put the figure at $4 billion. That is also almost the same amount communities spent to landfill paper and cardboard waste. In addition, the amount of embodied energy — accounting for all the energy required to manufacture these landfilled paper and cardboard wastes — equated to 9% of what the U.S. industrial sector used during 2019.

The researchers conducted a bottom-up analysis of paper and cardboard waste at 1,776 active landfills and 85 combustion facilities in the United States and produced a breakdown of where the material is winding up. Landfills typically are located near population centers, where more waste is generated. In some cases, however, where the waste winds up can be far from where it began. For example, trash from New York City can be found in landfills in Virginia and South Carolina. Landfill operators charge tipping fees to accept waste materials, and those fees are typically lower in rural areas, so it becomes economically feasible in certain instances to transport waste longer distances.

In addition to the energy expended for manufacturing and the lost economic value, landfilling paper and cardboard contributes to methane emissions, waste-disposal fees, deforestation, and local siting and environmental issues, the researchers noted. Fortunately, this category of waste is amenable to strategies — including reuse, recycling, composting, and energy recovery — that can mitigate the drawbacks of landfilling.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Bioenergy Technologies Office funded the research.

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The Climate Pollution Reduction Grants program created under the Inflation Reduction Act — the largest climate investment in history — is enabling community-driven solutions to the climate crisis and helping accelerate America’s clean energy transition. The program is covered under President Biden’s Justice40 Initiative, which set the goal that 40% of the overall benefits of certain federal climate, clean energy, and other investments flow to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution.

In 2023, under the first phase of the $5 billion program, EPA made a total of $250 million in grants available to 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, 80 MSAs, four territories, and over 200 Tribes and Tribal consortia to develop ambitious climate action plans that address greenhouse gas emissions across their communities and economies.

Jennifer Macedonia, Deputy Assistant Administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation said:

The diversity of ideas and ambitious initiatives from all across the country reflect the seriousness that states and metropolitan areas are bringing to the work of cutting pollution, acting on climate change, and meeting their local objectives. These climate action plans demonstrate substantial progress for states and local governments, in coordination with their communities, to chart their path forward — building healthy communities and competitive local economies where climate solutions can thrive.

As part of the deliverables due under the initial $250 million planning phase of the program, grantees were provided resources to develop and submit Priority Climate Action Plans focused on high-priority, implementation-ready actions to reduce GHG emissions that were due for states and large metropolitan areas on March 1. Although Tribal and territory PCAPs are due April 1, EPA has already received 19 plans from Tribes.

Each grantee can align the measures selected for the PCAP with their jurisdiction’s unique priorities and interests while prioritizing measures that can benefit low-income and disadvantaged communities. For many states and metro areas, PCAPs are their first climate action plans. For others, the PCAPs build on existing climate action plans and work undertaken over many years.

In addition to addressing climate pollution, these grants can also support efforts to:

• Help businesses capitalize on new opportunities, spur economic growth and create jobs by supporting new industries, and developing training programs to prepare workers;
• Ensure communities, particularly low-income and disadvantaged communities, have a seat at the table, help define solutions, and benefit from their implementation; and
• Gain substantial public health co-benefits through the simultaneous reduction of criteria.

The submitted PCAPs lay the groundwork for the second phase of the CPRG program: $4.6 billion in competitive implementation grants that planning grant recipients and other eligible entities can use to fund GHG reduction measures contained within the PCAPs. PCAPs also help prepare states and metro areas for accessing a broader set of funding opportunities, including other programs under the Investing in America agenda.

All planning grant recipients will also develop Comprehensive Climate Action Plans (due in the second half of 2025 for most grantees), which will include a broader suite of GHG reduction measures from all key emitting sectors — electric power, transportation, commercial and residential buildings, industry, agriculture/natural and working lands, and waste and materials management. The comprehensive plans will also contain GHG emissions projections and reduction targets, air quality and health benefits information, and workforce planning assessments. EPA is committed to providing grant recipients with technical support, tools, and other resources throughout the planning process.

Together, the CPRG planning grants and competitive implementation funding will support the deployment of technologies to reduce GHG emissions and other harmful pollution across the country, facilitate the transition to a low-carbon economy, and advance environmental justice by prioritizing benefits to communities.

View the Priority Climate Action Plans from CPRG planning grantees

More information on the Climate Pollution Reduction Grants

CPRG Training, Tools and Technical Assistance

Sign up for notifications about the Climate Pollution Reduction Grants program

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Medical supplies are a significant cause of waste in the U.S. and throughout the world, with the American Medical Association estimating that hospital patients generate about 33.8 pounds of waste each day, leading to 6 million tons of waste each year.

Steve Bettis, Medline ReNewal vice president, explained:

Medline ReNewal is a single-use device manufacturer and reprocessor. We take these medical devices — designed to be used one time — bring them back to life, and make them usable again for our hospital and healthcare partners.

Helping “to lower healthcare’s carbon footprint”

Since 2014, Medline ReNewal has reprocessed nearly 15 million devices, helping to divert more than 10 million pounds of waste from landfills¹. In 2022 alone, ReNewal reprocessed 2.3 million medical devices, helping to reduce approximately 1.1 million pounds of waste.

Frank Czajka, Medline ReNewal president, stated during the October ribbon-cutting ceremony:

We’re helping to lower healthcare’s carbon footprint, strengthen the healthcare supply chain, and improve cost efficiencies for our customers.

ReNewal health system partners attended the event, along with Jon Stark, CEO of Economic Development Central Oregon; Steve Curley, director of Redmond Economic Development; and Julie Hyer, senior project manager, Sunwest Builders.

Part of Medline’s Healthcare Resilience Initiative

The $21 million project is part of Medline’s multiyear Healthcare Resilience Initiative. Since 2018, the capital expenditure campaign has invested $2 billion in the company’s U.S. distribution centers, manufacturing capabilities, facility expansion projects and information technology (IT), with an additional $300 million planned for 2023.

ReNewal is an example of how sustainability can align with business strategy. Medline recently evolved to a robust, data-driven environmental, sustainability and governance model and released its first ESG Report.

The Redmond facility has the technical capacity to reprocess more than 4,300 types of supplies and devices across specialties of care, including orthopedics; ear, nose and throat; general/urology; ophthalmology and cardiac catheterization. Each day, the facility receives approximately 20,000 devices and ships out approximately 11,000 “like new” devices back to customers.

Meeting the highest safety standards

Bettis continued:

So the process itself from start to finish is pretty complex. Everything from collecting the devices at the customer’s facility, shipping them across the country, bringing them here, and then sorting, sterilizing, and reconditioning them and bringing them back to life.

Each reprocessed item must meet rigorous testing standards before being returned to customers. Medical device reprocessing is regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which requires the same performance standards for both new and reprocessed devices, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

For healthcare providers, ReNewal can help lower medical device costs 50% year after year; on average, between $200,000 and $2 million per facility (PDF). The OnDemand online ordering platform also makes it easy for customers to track the flow of collected and reprocessed devices.

Helping healthcare systems “balance competing priorities”

Currently, ReNewal works with 2,000 healthcare facilities on medical device reprocessing. This includes The University of Kansas, which reprocessed 14,000 instruments in 2022, diverting 6,911 pounds of medical device waste from landfills at a savings of $1.2 million.

Chris Heath, system director, Clinical Supply Chain Optimization, The University of Kansas Health System, remarked:

Over the last year, we really focused on expanding our product portfolio for reprocessing, concentrated on collections and creating strong partnerships with physicians and clinical staff using these products. Environmental sustainability is important to our health system, and the success of this program demonstrates our commitment to both patients and the communities we serve.

Czajka pointed out:

Every day, healthcare systems are asked to balance competing priorities — to cut costs, improve care quality and reduce waste. Medline ReNewal is extending the life of single-use devices without compromising clinical quality or patient safety. This is a win-win situation for our customers and the environment. We are thrilled to be part of the solution, and thrilled to celebrate this expanded facility.

Learn more about how Medline ReNewal is making healthcare run better.

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by Patricia LaCroix — Is recycling more of an afterthought than a strategy at your facility or business? Perhaps you’ve been wanting to put a heavier focus on improving recycling within your organization, but you don’t know where to start. Maybe you’re considering a recycling program for the very first time.

Even if you already have a recycling program in place, it never hurts to revisit and strengthen your program. If you aren’t recycling — or if you’re not doing so in a deliberate, structured way—the following steps can help you institute a robust recycling strategy for your facility or business.

Steps for successful recycling

While every program will have its unique situations and challenges, the following eight steps recommended by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can help any organization get on the path toward a lasting, effective recycling program.

STEP 1:
Select a recycling coordinator

Appoint a recycling coordinator to oversee the entire program. This individual is responsible for designing the collection program, selecting the company to transport the materials, facilitating education and outreach, and tracking progress of the operation. In addition, the recycling coordinator will act as the program’s liaison, communicating with third-party contractors, in-house staff, and the public to deal with questions and concerns.

STEP 2:
Determine the ‘waste stream’

A “waste stream” is the lifecycle of trash — from where it begins to where it ultimately ends. By analyzing and fully understanding your organization’s waste stream, you can better determine what needs to be recycled and how to handle those materials in an effective and efficient manner. To do so, conduct a waste assessment to discover what is being thrown away, how much of each material is tossed, and what can be recycled.

Some of the materials that should be considered for recycling include:

• Aluminum
• Plastics
• Glass
• Corrugated cardboard
• Paper, including old newspaper.

Also keep in mind that food can be recycled, by donating surplus food and composting food scraps. In doing your assessment, remember that many recyclables are commodities—they can be sold. Don’t throw away revenue with your trash. Prices for recyclables, however, do fluctuate with supply and demand. Your local or state government recycling offices, the local chamber of commerce, or a local or regional recycling organization might be able to help you find or develop new markets for materials you intend to collect and recycle.

STEP 3:
Practice waste prevention

Waste prevention means using less material to get a job done — and ending up with less waste to manage. In addition to environmental benefits, waste prevention saves money. There are three ways to prevent waste: reducing, reusing, and donating. Here are some ideas for each category to include in your program:

Reduce

• Train staff on how to reduce the amount of office paper used
• Purchase products that use less or no packaging materials
• Purchase products made with recycled content
• Purchase products in bulk
• Switch to reusable transport containers.

Reuse

• Reuse corrugated boxes internally
• Reuse office furniture and supplies, such as interoffice envelopes, file folders, and paper clips
• Use durable rather than disposable towels, tablecloths, napkins, dishes, cups, and flatware
• Use incoming packaging materials for outgoing shipments.

Donate

• Donate unwanted supplies to local schools or nonprofit organizations
• Donate food scraps for use as animal feed
• Donate uneaten food to local food banks
• Advertise surplus and reusable items through a commercial-materials exchange
• Donate excess building materials to local low-income housing developers.

STEP 4:
Decide how to haul

You’ll need to decide how the recyclables in your program will be transported — either by using an outside contractor or via in-house staff.

If your organization chooses to contract with a hauler rather than haul recyclables directly, ask your current trash hauler if it also offers recycling pickup. This might be your best economical option. If your trash hauler does not provide recycling services, contact local recycling companies to check out your options.

Your facility or business can also consider using a resource management (RM) contract with haulers. Unlike traditional solid waste service contracts, RM compensates waste contractors based on achieving your organization’s waste reduction goals rather than on the volume of waste you dispose. As a result, RM aligns contractor incentives with your recycling goals and encourages innovative approaches that foster cost-effective resource efficiency through waste prevention and recycling.

If you elect to haul your own waste, you’ll need to take the time to train staff on how to collect and transport recyclables. Contact your local recycling center for more information and to find local drop-off sites.

In choosing a contractor, you might also need to choose between single-stream or multi-stream recycling collection:

• Single-stream collection uses one bin to collect all of the various types of recyclables.
• Multi-stream collection separates the various recyclables into different bins. This is called source separating. Some materials cannot be collected together, such as food waste with plastics. Aluminum, glass, and plastics, on the other hand, are frequently collected together.

Some questions to ask when choosing a contractor:

• What materials do you collect?
• Do you provide single-stream or multi-stream collection?
• Do you charge for collection?
• Do you pay for recyclables? How do you calculate their value?
• Do you offer a package deal that includes both waste and recyclables pickup?
• Will there be a lower price for refuse pickup if I use your recycling services?
• Do you provide collection containers?
• What is the pickup schedule? Do you pick up on call?
• Is there a minimum or maximum weight that you will pick up?
• What is the allowable amount of contamination?
• What are your reporting and accounting procedures?
• Could you provide client references?
• How long have you been in business?

STEP 5:
Include third-parties, staff, and volunteers

Once you’ve done your research and have developed your program, you need to share it with those involved to ensure that everyone is fully aware and on board regarding their own related responsibilities.

STEP 6:
Set up the collection program

If you can make recycling easy, you’ll have greater cooperation from the participants of your program. Consider the following to make things more convenient:

Collection bins and liners

To avoid confusion, recycling bins should look different from regular trash cans and be easy to identify. Lids with round holes on recycling bins bottles and cans will reduce contamination with other materials, such as food. The labels on the bins should be large and clear with both words and pictures indicating what should be placed within them. Make sure to clearly label the trash cans, too.

If your community has a curbside recycling collection program, try coordinating the color of the facility’s bins with the color of those on the curbside. Patrons will more likely associate the bin color with recycling, thus boosting their participation.

Bins are usually made from steel, corrugated cardboard, or plastic. Try to purchase collection bins made of postconsumer recycled content. When selecting bins to use, consider:

• Cost
• Durability
• Capacity
• Ease of handling
• Amount of recycled content.

You’ll also need appropriate plastic liners (bags) for the bins. Remember that as the bins are emptied, they will need new liners to collect more recyclables. If a single-stream collection system is being used, consider using clear bags so the contents can be easily identified once filled. Some bag manufacturers even print recycling symbols on their bags, and many make recycled-content bags for purchase.

Placement of collection bins

Collection bins should be placed closest to where recyclables are being generated, such as near tables within a lunchroom or next to copier machines. Your waste assessment should help identify these locations. Ideally, recycling collection bins should be placed next to every trash can within your facility. Make sure that it’s just as easy for the public to recycle as it would be to throw away other trash.

Storage and pickup

Once the materials have been removed from the collection bins, they need to be stored on-site until picked up by a hauler or delivered to a transfer station or materials-recovery facility. You’ll need answers to these questions:• Will the materials be stored on-site in a shed or a dumpster?

• Will the hauler provide a compactor as part of its contract?
• If not, is it feasible to invest in a compactor, which will decrease the number of pickups needed for the collected recyclables

Consider the size of the facility and available storage space when determining how frequently the recyclables must be hauled. Remember to also consider seasonal fluctuations in the quantity of recyclables generated (e.g., winter holidays and summer vacations). Regularly monitor how full the recycling dumpster is when gets emptied. If it is only half full, save money by reducing the number of times the hauler collects the materials.

STEP 7:
Facilitate outreach and education

Education will encourage participation in your recycling program, while helping to maintain order and efficiency within it. Use signs, displays, loudspeaker announcements, fliers, emails, and social media to reach out to your participants and teach them why, what, where, and how they should recycle.

STEP 8:
Monitor and evaluate your recycling program

As with any good plan, monitoring and evaluating your recycling program gives you the opportunity to assess and improve it as time goes by. Use your baseline data collected before you created the program to evaluate its progress.

In addition, you can determine your recycling rate using this formula:

• The recycling rate equals total recycled (by weight) divided by total discarded (by weight)
  plus recycled (by weight).
• Determine the recycling rate for all your recyclables combined and for each material independently. Track your progress over time as the recycling rate increases.

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This information will help the public, researchers, and other stakeholders better understand potential PFAS sources in their communities. The PFAS Analytic Tools bring together multiple sources of information in one spot with mapping, charting, and filtering functions, allowing the public to see where testing has been done and what level of detections were measured.

EPA’s PFAS Analytic Tools draws from multiple national databases and reports to consolidate information in one webpage in order to help communities gain a better understanding of local PFAS sources. The webpage includes information on:

• Clean Water Act PFAS discharges from permitted sources;
• Reported spills containing PFAS constituents;
• Facilities historically manufacturing or importing PFAS;
• Federally owned locations where PFAS is being investigated;
• Transfers of PFAS-containing waste;
• PFAS detection in natural resources such as fish or surface water; and
• Drinking water testing results.

The tools cover a broad list of PFASs and represent EPA’s ongoing efforts to provide the public with access to the growing amount of testing information that is available.

Because the regulatory framework for PFAS chemicals is emerging, data users should pay close attention to the caveats found within the site so that the completeness of the data sets is fully understood. Rather than wait for complete national data to be available, EPA is publishing what is currently available while information continues to fill in. Users should be aware that some of the datasets are complete at the national level whereas others are not. For example, EPA has included a national inventory for drinking water testing at larger public water utilities. That information was provided between 2013-2016.

To include more recent data, EPA also compiled other drinking water datasets that are available online in select states. For the subset of states and tribes publishing PFAS testing results in drinking water, the percentage of public water supplies tested varied significantly from state to state. Because of the differences in testing and reporting across the country, the data should not be used for comparisons across cities, counties, or states.

To improve the availability of the data in the future, EPA has published its fifth Safe Drinking Water Act Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule to expand on the initial drinking water data reporting that was conducted in 2013-2016. Beginning in 2023, this expansion will bring the number of drinking water PFAS samples collected by regulatory agencies into the millions.

EPA also significantly expanded the Toxics Release Inventory reporting requirements in recent years to over 175 PFAS substances — and more information should be received in 2023.

EPA’s proposal to designate PFOA and PFOS as Hazardous Substances would also improve data on spill or release incidents reported to the Emergency Response Notification System.

These reporting enhancements will be incorporated into future versions of the interactive webpage. EPA says it will continue working toward the expansion of data sets in the PFAS Analytic Tools as a way to improve collective knowledge about PFAS occurrence in the environment.

See also: “PFAS 101: Everything You Need to Know About ‘Forever Chemicals’” on EcoWatch for an explanation about PFAS chemicals.

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The guide, The Impact of Plastic PPE during Covid-19: How to Reduce and Dispose of Our PPE Waste More Responsibly, covers:

• Short-term and long-term effects of PPE damage on the environment
• Wider plastic waste and the pandemic
• How to safely dispose of PPE used during Covid-19
• What types of PPE can be recycled
• Advice for reducing the amount of PPE wastage

Here are just a handful of the insights from the guide:

• In the UK, 784 million PPE items were used in hospitals in just a 53-day period at the start of the pandemic. This equated to 14 million pieces of equipment being thrown away daily.
• If every person wears a single-use face mask every day for a year, as much as 66,000 tons of unrecyclable plastic waste could be thrown away. This would cause damage to marine ecosystems, as well as pollution of natural resources.
• The sudden need for single-use PPE, bubble wrap for the transportation of online shopping, and numerous other Covid-related factors have directly resulted in a surge in plastic production. Most of this plastic is “new plastic” rather than recycled plastic — new plastic is far more damaging to the environment but 83% to 93% cheaper to produce.

The complete report, The Impact of Plastic PPE during Covid-19: How to Reduce and Dispose of Our PPE Waste More Responsibly, is available to view on the Safetec Direct website.

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ABM Ventures will explore new strategic growth opportunities and quicken the innovation cycle through investments primarily in growth-stage companies that are solving for the facility services industry’s biggest challenges, including sustainability, virtual and digital workplace services, and e-mobility.

Scott Salmirs, ABM’s president and CEO, stated:

As one of the world’s largest providers of facility services, ABM has the scale and scope to identify opportunities to deliver solutions for our clients today and in the years ahead. This new program will enable us to nurture and invest in exciting new technologies and ideas that have the potential to create positive, disruptive change for the industry, and in turn help our clients navigate and win in increasingly dynamic markets. ABM Ventures directly aligns with our Elevate plan for growth and expansion — a strategy devoted toward unlocking significant long-term value for all stakeholders and strengthening our industry leadership position.

The new ABM Ventures program is established as a new operating unit of the company’s Strategy, Technology and Transformation organization, led by Chief Strategy Officer Josh Feinberg.

Feinberg remarked:

Providing our over 20,000 clients with cutting-edge offerings that drive a significantly more efficient, data-driven and tech-enabled experience is central to our Elevate strategy. ABM Ventures provides a new platform for us to curate and bring innovative solutions to scale and deliver directly to our clients. When combined with our ABMNext innovation program, our internal development of client-facing technology, and our focused M&A strategy, ABM is positioned unlike any other in the industry to adopt the most forward-looking solutions for property owners and facility managers.

ABM Ventures: RTS partnership

ABM Ventures recently completed its first transaction by making a minority investment in Recycle Track Systems (RTS), a provider of cutting-edge traceability and sustainability solutions utilized in the materials, waste, and recycling industry. Through this partnership, ABM clients will have access to RTS’s on-demand waste removal and materials management solutions, including waste and recycling habit analytics, waste pickup optimization and tracking, and development of zero waste and circular economy programs.

RTS is pioneering a better way to manage waste and recycling, combining technology with high-touch service to make waste disposal easier, smarter and more responsible. From on-demand removal to fully integrated waste management solutions, RTS helps companies and municipalities easily track and optimize their pickups. Using data insight, RTS empowers clients with visibility into their waste habits and tangible figures on their climate impact to improve their waste and recycling practices. RTS now serves more than 15,000 commercial customers and 60,000 homes across all 50 States, Canada, and Puerto Rico through a cloud-based software platform, and has coordinated 5,750,000 tons of material verified recycled. RTS is a certified B-Corporation, reflecting its dedication and commitment to meeting stringent standards of environmental transparency and performance.

Feinberg continued:

Helping our clients manage and improve sustainability is core to our mission, and we are focused on providing them with emerging solutions to best reach their sustainability goals. Through our partnership with RTS, ABM clients gain access to innovative, tech-enabled tools that provide real-time transparency into their operations’ waste habits, actionable insights into their climate impact, and expertise to improve their practices overall.

ABM Elevate: Momentum Support acquisition

Reflective of ABM’s Elevate strategy, which includes growth via strategic acquisitions that expand the company’s footprint in attractive geographies and end-markets, the company also announced the acquisition of Momentum Support in April. Momentum is an independent provider of facility services, primarily janitorial, across the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, with a workforce of 2,300.

To learn more about the ABM Ventures business ventures program or its Elevate strategy, visit the ABM website.

From curbside to rooftop, ABM offers a comprehensive array of integrated facility services that includes janitorial, engineering, parking, electrical & lighting, energy solutions, HVAC & mechanical, landscape & turf, and mission-critical solutions. ABM delivers these custom facility solutions to properties across a wide range of industries — from commercial office buildings to schools, airports, hospitals, data centers, manufacturing plants and distribution centers, entertainment venues and more. Founded in 1909, ABM today has more than 100,000 team members in 350+ offices throughout the United States, United Kingdom and other international locations.

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The awards provide global recognition to the individuals and organizations leading the higher education sustainability movement. With the help of volunteer judges from the community, the awards program raises the visibility of high-impact sustainability projects and collaborations, pioneering research, and student leadership, helping to disseminate innovations and inspire continued progress toward environmental, social and economic health.

This year’s winners are listed below.

Lifetime Achievement Award Winner

• David Shi, a visionary leader for sustainability who, as president at Furman University from 1994 to 2010, helped transform the institution into a widely recognized model for sustainability.  Notable accomplishments under his leadership include the adoption of a general education requirement in sustainability and the launch of a new bachelor of science degree in Sustainability Science. David was also charter signatory of the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment and later served on the board of Second Nature. His impact on campus continues to be felt in the work of the Shi Institute for Sustainable Communities, which promotes sustainable communities through education, research and leadership.

Racial Equity and Sustainability Collaborations Winners

• Catawba College’s Equity, Diversity, Justice, Inclusion Task Force, which aims to build a campus community where all members thrive by working to cultivate critical conversations and practices that close opportunity gaps and promote equity, diversity, justice, and inclusion on campus and in the larger community.

Campus Sustainability Achievement Award Winners

Associate/2-year Institutions

• Cascadia College’s Cornucopia Food Forest, an integrated learning project at Cascadia College that creates opportunities for students from multiple disciplines to engage in and learn about permaculture.

Institutions with over 10,000 FTE Enrollment

• North Carolina State University’s Pack Essentials Steering Committee, a large, diverse network of N.C. State and community partners working to address the multidimensional challenge of food and housing insecurity.

Institutions with under 10,000 FTE Enrollment

• Brandeis University’s Sustainable Dining Program, which harnessed the RFP and contracting process for a new dining vendor in 2019-2021 to make huge strides in sustainability in the University’s dining program.

Campus Sustainability Research Award Winners

Undergraduate Research

• Wiley J. Hundertmark, Marissa Lee, Ian A. Smith, Vivien Chen, Conor K. Gately, Pamela H. Templer and Lucy R. Hutyra at Boston University and Ashley H.Y. Bang at Brown University for Influence of landscape management practices on urban greenhouse gas budgets. This study quantifies the impact of landscaping management strategies — such as mulch application and expanding tree canopy — on biogenic carbon emissions.

Graduate Research

• James Ayers at Blekinge Institute of Technology for Educational contexts and designs for cultivating leaders capable of addressing the wicked issues of sustainability transitions. This thesis investigates the efficacy of academic sustainability programs in developing sustainability competencies among students and suggests strategies for improvement.

Published Journal Article — Academics

• Nicole Redvers and Be’sha Blondin at Arctic Indigenous Wellness Foundation, Clinton Schultz at Bond University, Melissa Vera Prince at University of Washington, Myrna Cunningham at El Fondo para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas de América Latina y El Caribe (FILAC) and Rhys Jones at University of Auckland for Indigenous perspectives on education for sustainable healthcare. This research paper discusses the urgent need in the health professions education community to prioritize environmentally sustainable healthcare practice, and argues that it must include and prioritize Indigenous voices and Indigenous knowledge systems.

Published Journal Article — Engagement

• Alexandra Lyon and Hannah Wittman at University of British Columbia and Harriet Friedmann at University of Toronto for Can public universities play a role in fostering seed sovereignty? This paper examines the history of public research for seed systems in North America, arguing that commercialization of public research has exacerbated inequalities inherent in the founding structure of public agricultural research. It offers a reimagined public seed research agenda that focuses on strengthening links between public research and grassroots seed movements.

Published Journal Article — Operations

• Molly Anderson at Middlebury College, Nicole Tichenor Blackstone at Tufts University, Eleanor Sterling and Erin Betley at American Museum of Natural History, Sharon Akabas at Columbia University, Pamela Koch at Teachers College, Columbia University, Colin Dring and Will Valley at University of British Columbia, Joanne Burke and Karen Spiller at University of New Hampshire for Towards an equity competency model for sustainable food systems education programs. This paper assesses the extent to which sustainable food systems education programs in the U.S. and Canada address equity, and proposes an equity competency model that provides strategies for dismantling racism and other forms of inequity.

Published Journal Article — Planning & Administration

• Helen Kopnina at The Hague University of Applied Science and Northumbria University for Education for Sustainable Development Goals (ESDG): What Is Wrong with ESDGs, and What Can We Do Better? Using a course as an intervention, this paper discusses the shortcomings of the current use and practice of sustainable development and education for sustainable development, arguing that they are anthropocentric and have moral and pragmatic limitations.

Student Sustainability Leadership Award Winner

• Teresa Homsi and Eric Urbaniak at Central Michigan University for Central Sustainability, a successful effort to create a centralized sustainability structure at the University.

AASHE’s Executive Director Meghan Fay Zahniser commented:

The 12 institutions and individuals that make up this year’s award winners clearly demonstrated the incredible work that happens regularly throughout the higher education sustainability community. We are thrilled to recognize these outstanding efforts to advance sustainability.

For more details about the campus sustainability programs and projects honored by this year’s awards, visit the AASHE Awards webpage. AASHE empowers higher education administrators, faculty, staff and students to be effective change agents and drivers of sustainability innovation. AASHE enables members to translate information into action by offering essential resources and professional development to a diverse, engaged community of sustainability leaders.

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