With winter break approaching, most of us are just trying to make it through finals week long enough to see the holiday lights at the end of the tunnel. However, with all the excitement about going back home and not having assignments, there is also a lot of excess waste. I don’t mean to be a Grinch, but the holiday season is a lot nicer for everyone if waste is disposed of properly. As you clear out the smelly fruit in the back of your refrigerator and do a much-needed winter dorm cleaning, here are three things to keep in mind.

Sort the trash in your dorm room

Most NYU dorm rooms come with one trash can per resident, and it may be tempting to divide your trash by person. Instead, as you’re cleaning out your dorm and discussing living agreements for the spring, I recommend you use one bin for recycling and one bin for trash, and then dispose of each in the floor’s communal trash cans separately. 

When you’re enjoying the last of that Upstein takeout or happily discarding your mandatory lab notes after acing your biology final like the genius you are, there’s a lot of recyclable waste that gets mixed with garbage and inevitably moves to a landfill. By taking the extra few minutes to sort your trash carefully and follow NYU guidelines, you can save entire batches of recycling from ending up in the wrong place. 

“Our recyclables — including glass, paper, cardboard, metal, rigid plastic — are placed out for collection in clear bags,” NYU spokesperson Shonna Keogan said. “If a bag contains liquids or non-recyclable items, that bag must be diverted to landfill.”

Follow the disposal signs at the dining halls

If you have a meal plan, now might be the time you realize you have a week to use up to 40 meal swipes, and start frequenting the dining halls about four to five times every day. I’ll admit, the signs at dining halls get confusing, and I’ve hurriedly thrown away my entire trash into the landfill bin without checking for any alternatives.

However, all the NYU dining halls have bins specifically labeled compost for food waste and food-soiled paper, as well as mixed recycling. The NYU website has clearer descriptions for what fits under each category — and yes, clean Kimmel pizza boxes are recyclable. By familiarizing yourself with what does and doesn’t belong in compost at the dining halls, you could prevent methane emissions from waste processing from entering the environment, and instead contribute to its repurposing for fertilizer. NYU’s food waste is processed into engineered bioslurry.

“This process requires that all food waste [must] be run through a screener machine that separates out plastic and other materials that may have mistakenly been placed in the compost receptacle,” Keogan said. “Our waste processing facility is one of the few local composting facilities in New York City, and handles up to 250 tons of food waste per day.”

Educate yourself on NYU’s sustainability efforts

Did you know what engineered bioslurry was? Did you know that disposing batteries the wrong way could have hazardous consequences? Did you know that NYU has a sustainability guide for students ranging from small decisions to purposeful campaigns they can participate in?

A lot of ways to prevent greenhouse gas emissions and further NYU’s pledge of being carbon neutral by 2040 are simple and quick; it is simply the lack of awareness stopping us from doing them. So, when you’re standing in front of the trash cans at the Palladium dining hall or opening up an intricately wrapped Amazon package and find yourself curious about whether something is recyclable, just go down the rabbit hole — I promise it’ll be worth it.

Contact Naisha Roy at [email protected]