Emory University signed a new contract with Waste Eliminator, a full-service waste management company, this semester to increase landfill diversion rates, according to a University press release. As part of the Office of Sustainability Initiatives (OSI) and the Sustainability Visioning Committee’s Sustainability Vision and Strategic Plan, the University hopes to divert 95% of construction waste from landfills by the end of the year. The plan states that the committee’s goal is to prioritize sustainability to improve environmental practices.
During a tour of the recycling facilities in October 2024, Professor of German Studies and Linguistics Hiram Maxim said that he learned that Goodr, Emory’s previous waste management vendor, only diverted 51% of waste from landfills.
The Emory Wheel reached out to Vice President for Campus Services and Chief Planning Officer Robin Morey for more details on Emory’s contract with Waste Eliminator, who redirected the Wheel to the press release. In the March 12 statement, Morey said that the new recycling facility will use gas capture technologies to decompose waste in landfills.
Maxim said that Emory has successfully diverted pre-consumer waste made in kitchens and pre-consumer laboratory waste in the past. However, Maxim said that post-consumer waste has not been properly diverted into compost, plastic and metals, mixed paper, white paper and landfill bins around campus.
“One of my big concerns … is the sentiment among a lot of students that I’ve talked to, a growing cynicism towards Emory’s claims of sustainable practices, and the belief that Emory is engaged in greenwashing,” Maxim said.
Emory Climate Coalition (ECC) and Emory Ecological Society member Benji Jackson (23Ox, 25C) said that because people do not trust Emory’s waste management, many community members do not separate their trash correctly between the bins, leading to contamination of compost and recycling. Once a certain amount of a bag is contaminated, it can no longer be diverted from landfills, according to Jackson.
Sunrise Emory member Taylor Black (28C) said she often tells her friends to be mindful when separating trash between bins.
“Most of the people I talk to just dump things in random bins because they just don’t think it matters,” Black said.
Jackson said that doubts about Emory’s sustainability practices have existed for a long time, and the last contract’s failure to meet the 95% diversion rate by 2025 only added to the skepticism.
“There’s pretty widespread doubt across the university about the current waste sorting and with landfill diversion rates,” Jackson said. “A lot of that existed prior to the widespread knowledge of how the previous contract was failing.”
Jackson said he and other ECC members are advocating for increased transparency and publicity about the new waste management vendor to ensure the community contributes to sustainability efforts.
“What we’re turning towards now is different routes of publicizing new details of the contract and different ways of reassuring faith in the system,” Jackson said. “Also trying to work with OSI and other bodies on campus to implement new measures of making sure what happened in the past doesn’t happen again to the same degree.”
Maxim emphasized the importance of raising community awareness about proper waste sorting.
“We need to do more educational efforts, but we also need to pay more attention to what we are putting where,” Maxim said.
Additionally, Maxim praised the University’s commitment to sustainable practices amid growing political dissent over green initiatives.
“It’s always been one of the sources of pride as a member of the Emory community that Emory’s committed a lot of resources, time and effort to sustainability,” Maxim said. “I know the current political climate is not friendly towards sustainability goals, but I’m hoping Emory can stay true to its goals.”
