Waste Management
Managing waste may sound a bit off at first. When you think about it a bit more though, you’ll come to realize that we produce immense amounts of waste the University of St. Gallen alone. And then, probing a bit more into the different stakeholders of waste, it will get quite complex.
In an initial step, an information campaign will be launched on campus to sensibilize students to recycling-topics
Goal of the project:
Our essential goal of the project is to aid the university in reaching their sustainability goal of being climate neutral by 2030. We would optimally reach this goal by firstly starting an information and awareness campaign for students on how to correctly dispose of their waste. Then, with eventual data from the Cantonal Waste department, we will start looking at how to optimise the waste collection centres at university. One possibility of this optimisation could be to impose a centralised waste collection for special disposal of glass and biological waste for example, which is currently not offered. Another optimisation option is to install an AI driven food waste scanner in our Cantina kitchen. Scanning and offering advice types of food should be offered in a smaller amount of not at all.
Why this project?
Currently, there is very little insight into waste disposal at our university. Increased transparency would certainly raise the trust of all stakeholders involved, how the university actually disposes of the immense daily waste the organization produces. Also in hindsight to the university wanting to be climate neutral by 2030, being transparent is never a negative aspect. Also, comparing the university of St. Gallen to other universities of Switzerland, it is lacking in the disposal options they offer to people in the organization.
For this project we were coached in the context of Focus Sustainability by Marie-Claire Graf (youth advocate, global change maker and speaker for just sustainable development and ambitious climate action)
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