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Ohio State has set an ambitious goal: achieve zero waste by 2025, by diverting 90% of campus waste away from landfills. To help make this vision a reality, the university has expanded its composting program to include students living in residence halls and off-campus housing. Now, FOD seeks faculty and instructors’ support in spreading the word among the student community. Twenty-five, 5-minute mini-presentations will be conducted about the Buckeyes Compost program in classes this autumn semester.
Ohio State Energy Partners (OSEP) has announced the recipients of its 2023-24 philanthropic awards. The awards provide funding for proposals that align with Ohio State’s sustainability goals and support the continuation of successful initiatives or the development/implementation of new programs or research projects that continue the trajectory of meeting the goals. Facilities Operations Development (FOD) Zero Waste Manager, Mary Leciejewski, earned an OSEP award of $50,000 for Administration and Planning’s Food Scrap Compost Expansion.
As highlighted by The Office of Academic Affairs, Ohio State Energy Partners (OSEP) has announced the recipients of its 2023-24 philanthropic awards. The awards provide funding for proposals that align with Ohio States sustainability goals and support the continuation of successful initiatives or the development/implementation of new programs or research projects that continue the trajectory of meeting the goals. Facilities Operations Development (FOD) Zero Waste Manager, Mary Leciejewski, earned an OSEP award for Administration and Planning's Food Scrap Compost Expansion.
The Ohio State University Columbus campus joined more than 3.4 million college students and staff across the country in the 2023 Campus Race to Zero Waste competition. During the competition, Buckeyes saved more than 1.9 million pounds of materials from being buried in a landfill. These materials will now get a second chance by being transformed into new products through recycling and composting.
The Lantern recently highlighted a collaboration between Facilities Operations and Development (FOD), the Sustainability Institute (SI) and Susan Melsop, professor of design, to prompt conversations about sustainability and campus composting. FOD and SI shared guidance and informational resources about composting and well as logistics coordination for the interactive wagon roll-out.
From handmade seed paper to a student-designed fold-out magazine, Facilities Operations and Development (FOD) is partnering with a Design Activism course to get the word out about composting around campus. When Associate Professor of Design, Susan Melsop, approached FOD and the Sustainability Institute about working together on the Design Activism for Sustainability project, FOD Zero Waste Manager, Mary Leciejewski, was eager to lend a hand.
Updated: April 7, 2023
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The results are in from Facilities Operations and Development’s (FOD) two-phase waste characterization study on waste and recycling generated on Ohio State’s main campus.
Baseline data was collected in fall 2021 as part of phase one and multiple waste program enhancements were made to improve how materials were being managed on campus, including:
Ready, set, recycle! The Lantern featured Facilities Operations and Development (FOD) in an article on the university competing in The Campus Race to Zero Waste. The competition aims to encourage students, faculty and staff to recycle more, recycle right and compost.
"If the faculty, staff and students were to put recyclables in the correct bin, Ohio State could increase its landfill diversion rate by 27 percent this year," Molly Kathleen, zero waste coordinator for Facilities Operations and Development, told The Lantern.