Materials

Using and Reusing Materials to Inspire

University operations and academics require a vast array of materials - from art supplies to furniture, from medical equipment to sports uniforms, from construction materials to food. Yale helps drive sustainability within this complex materials system by leveraging relationships with suppliers and using data to inspire, incentivize, and empower our community members.


Yale’s Efforts

  • We continually look for opportunities to encourage reuse of products within the Yale community and beyond. Spring Salvage donates items from students leaving the University.

What You Can Do

Our Objectives and Goals

Purchasing Standards

Advance purchasing standards that promote sustainability and resilience

Funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Yale Center for Industrial Ecology’s EcoManufacturing project, initiated in 2022, will enable the development of recyclable electronics. Recognizing that the prevalence of electronic waste poses numerous challenges, including overconsuming scarce elements and usurping enormous amounts of energy for manufacturing, the Center is working with collaborators in engineering and chemistry to develop new classes of electronics from renewable materials. These “soft” electronics can either degrade naturally or be repurposed into high-value products after their lifetime. The project will result in an all-printing-based manufacturing framework to enable the creation of sustainable soft electronics in a scalable way.

This Objective is supported by the following goals. Progress reflects activities and accomplishments from July 2022 - June 2023: 
Goal: 

Healthy Materials Purchasing

WE COULD DO BETTER

By 2025, implement sustainable purchasing practices for specific commodity groups.

Progress: 

An updated inventory was conducted for 2022 to reflect current practices around plastics purchasing, after the previous inventory was conducted pre-pandemic. An analysis of this data is forthcoming.

Material Flow Systems

Promote material flow systems that employ use and disposal patterns to inform purchasing decisions

This Objective is supported by the following goals. Progress reflects activities and accomplishments from July 2022 - June 2023: 
Goal: 

Pay As You Throw

ACHIEVED

By January 2022, create, pilot, and assess a “pay as you throw” system.

Progress: 

This goal was achieved in 2019. The Pay As You Throw pilot, the first of its kind at an American higher education institution, included three treatment groups and two control groups. The final analysis was completed in Fall 2019, and outcomes from the pilot continue to be used.

Goal: 

Targeted Waste Reduction

ACHIEVED

By 2020, identify the most impactful commodity groups that contribute to Yale’s waste stream through material flow analyses.

Progress: 

This goal was achieved in 2020. Material flow analyses on pallets, animal bedding, paper, cardboard, and plastic bags were completed, and a life cycle assessment on plastic utensils and compostable utensils was conducted.

Purchasing and Disposal Decision-Making

Cultivate sustainable purchasing and disposal decisions

This Objective is supported by the following goals. Progress reflects activities and accomplishments from July 2022 - June 2023: 
Goal: 

Materials Outreach and Engagement

ACHIEVED

By 2020, create and launch an engagement strategy to empower Yale students, staff, and faculty to make responsible materials management choices, including communications about purchasing volume for key commodities; reuse; and diversion of materials from the waste stream.

Progress: 

This goal was achieved in 2020, and continued reporting will be done under the new goals of “Waste Diversion” and “Green Cleaning.”

Goal: 

Waste Diversion

WE COULD DO BETTER

By 2025, divert 60% of materials while maintaining or reducing overall volume of waste.

Progress: 

We diverted 34% of our waste in 2023, which is a 2% decrease from last year. Overall materials usage (the combined tonnage of municipal solid waste, single-stream recycling, and food waste) was down 11% from pre-pandemic usage (2019).

Goal: 

Green Cleaning

WE COULD DO BETTER

By 2025, 40% of cleaning chemicals used, by volume, should be green-preferred or green-certified.

Progress: 

Data on University-purchased cleaning chemicals that were green-preferred or green-certified has been unavailable for the past several years. However, we are deploying new solutions, including technology that eliminates the need for cleaning chemicals and generates sustainable cleaning solutions using only water, salt, and electricity.

Goal: 

Reuse

ON TRACK

By 2025, create a suite of coordinated solutions for exploring inflow and outflow of high-volume materials by identifying opportunities for reuse within Yale, the New Haven community, and the region.

Progress: 

In 2023, new local partnerships for reuse were explored and swap activities with the graduate student community were implemented. Spring Salvage, the undergraduate student moveout program, diverted 46,000 pounds from the waste stream.