Campus Race to Zero Waste 2023

Seattle University joined more than 3.4 million college students and staff across the country in a competition to reduce the campus waste footprint through minimization efforts by donating, composting and recycling more than 29.4 million pounds of waste. As a result, collectively, we have kept more than 200 million single-use plastic containers out of landfills and prevented the release of 29,108 metric tons equivalent of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, equal to avoiding the annual emissions from 6,128 cars.

• SU placed 11th nationally out of 91 participating Colleges and Universities in the Diversion Category. SU placed 3rd in the Medium Sized School Carnegie Class.
• SU recycled and composted around 109,000lb of materials throughout the 8 weeks of the competition.
• In a one-month period, SU diverted over 2400lb of electronics from the landfill.
• Our cumulative GHG reductions were equivalent to about 131 Metric Tons of CO2—which is the same as keeping 26 cars off the road, or the energy consumed by 11 households.