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.
- Yale’s purchasing professionals play an important role in advancing responsible materials management. Learn about Procurement’s sustainability goals and initiatives.
- Managing the disposal of items leaving campus is a complex process. We strive for transparency, and look to the Yale community help us reach our goals.
What You Can Do
- Buy or sell, donate and find! Turn to the Eli Surplus Exchange to keep resources on campus.
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.
Healthy Materials Purchasing
WE COULD DO BETTER
By 2025, implement sustainable purchasing practices for specific commodity groups.
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
Pay As You Throw
ACHIEVED
By January 2022, create, pilot, and assess a “pay as you throw” system.
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.
Targeted Waste Reduction
ACHIEVED
By 2020, identify the most impactful commodity groups that contribute to Yale’s waste stream through material flow analyses.
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
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.
This goal was achieved in 2020, and continued reporting will be done under the new goals of “Waste Diversion” and “Green Cleaning.”
Waste Diversion
WE COULD DO BETTER
By 2025, divert 60% of materials while maintaining or reducing overall volume of waste.
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).
Green Cleaning
WE COULD DO BETTER
By 2025, 40% of cleaning chemicals used, by volume, should be green-preferred or green-certified.
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.
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.
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.