[00:00:00] Adam: Hello. Welcome to another episode of Green Champions.
[00:00:13] Dominique: Thanks for joining us in a conversation with real people, making real environmental change in the work that they do. I'm here with Adam, the social enterprise extraordinaire.
[00:00:20] Adam: I'm so glad to be here alongside Dominique, the sustainability expert. We bring you guests who saw the potential for impact in their job or community and did something about it.
[00:00:27] Dominique: From entrepreneurs to artists, scientists to activists. This podcast is a platform for green champions to share their stories and plant some new ideas.
[00:00:36] Adam: Today Dominique and I are joined by Mary Leciejewski. She was previously the Zero Waste Manager at Ohio State University.
Now she serves as the Associate Director of Environmental Sustainability for the OSU's Facility Operation and Development team, which you may hear us referring to as FOD. Last time, we really got to hear about Mary's journey into sustainability and some of the work that they're doing at OSU. Today, we're really gonna dive deeper into the success story as it relates to the zero waste goals for the Ohio State University. Welcome back on.
[00:01:05] Mary: Thanks for having me.
[00:01:06] Dominique: Remind us, what's your role at Ohio State?
[00:01:08] Mary: So currently I'm the Associate Director of Sustainability and Facilities, Operations and Development. I've been at Ohio State for eight years, so I've worked in a sustainability coordinator role working on the Zero Waste Stadium, as well as the Zero Waste Manager role,
[00:01:21] Dominique: In my role as Zero waste Manager, I advance the enterprise wide resource stewardship goals to divert 90% of waste away from landfills through recycling, composting, waste prevention and reuse,
And the 90% diversion rule that you also mentioned last time being the kinda a guiding light of zero waste, that's an industry standard that wasn't created by Ohio State.
[00:01:42] Mary: No, you're right. There's like an international organization that has made that standard. Of course, like the term is zero waste, but the metric is 90%. So that can trip people up when they're kind of learning about it. Originally, it's not a hundred percent, but 90% was seen as like the real potential.
[00:01:59] Dominique: As we begin this chat, this whole episode will be around zero waste initiatives and where you're at in that journey and how you approached that and it's a really core to your work previously as zero waste manager. So I think it's good for us to define what does that really mean.
[00:02:11] Mary: Yeah. I think it's important to think of like, "Okay, like how do you calculate that metric?" So it's by weight. And so if you're within the industry, you know that when you throw something away and you take it to a landfill or take it to a recycling facility or a composting facility, you get a weight, like a scaled ticket. So for how much material you're disposing of, and there's often like a cost associated by weight.
And so we calculate the diversion rate annually. It's a really big undertaking. Molly Kathleen in our team, who's a zero waste consultant champions that, and it's an Excel spreadsheet of probably 400 different lines of all of the things that we throw away and all of the haulers that we work with.
And then there's also things in that you might not think of, like shredding paper, right? Like, so if you're in a medical center, like all paper has to go into a confidential shredding bin. And so there's a weight associated with that. And so then you calculate up everything that you recycled, composted or reused, and then you divide that by the total of amount of materials that you generated that year.
[00:03:08] Adam: Very cool.
So what are the different sustainability initiatives at OSU and how are you managing them?
[00:03:14] Mary: So I think it's important to remember that Ohio State is a city within a city on any given day. We have a hundred thousand people who step onto our campus and they use a lot of resources to work, learn, receive patient care. And then we have four overarching sustainability pillars that are cross-cutting.
So it's teaching and learning, research, engagement as well as resource stewardship. And so like facilities, operations and development manages what we refer to as the resource stewardship goals, and that includes carbon energy, water, ecosystem services, waste and transportation.
[00:03:48] Dominique: It's a lot.
[00:03:49] Mary: Yeah. yeah.
[00:03:50] Dominique: Those could each be an episode.
[00:03:52] Mary: Yeah, it is a lot of different things. And then with zero waste specifically, we did a waste characterization study. And then from that we created really three pillars of action items. So the first is waste prevention, so looking what we bring on campus, what we purchase, and how our purchasing decisions affect our solid waste. Then recycling, and then our composting pillar.
[00:04:12] Dominique: And I'm glad you did mention about the weight thing and the fact that weight, it correlates to kind of cost, but it doesn't really take into account the volume of things. And when you think about like if someone's listening, they're like, "That doesn't seem to matter." If you just think about like the volume of plastic cup would take up versus the weight, like that weight isn't really doing that material justice. So like the impact it would have. So, it's interesting to help set the stage of just how we measure that and why, and just the kind of industry standard things someone outside might not know.
[00:04:42] Mary: And I think it's important too, if you're thinking about waste, like some containers don't have like an individual weight. And so what you do is you like have a volume to weight conversion factor that's like set by the EPA, and then you use that to calculate your diversion rate.
So you have the volume and then you convert it to a w eight.
[00:04:58] Dominique: Yeah. Which is kind of funny 'cause we know the volume of the containers you have for a facility. You can speak to like how big your dumpsters are. Just interesting as an industry that there's two different metrics that kind of drive things.
What are you most proud of when it comes to the progress you've seen?
[00:05:11] Mary: The first thing that definitely stands out is our transition to our composting system. So we increased the number of composting locations on campus from 39 to 120 over one summer.
[00:05:22] Dominique: Most people fret about adding composting in one spot. Like I just, I just really wanna pause and think about that. Like, so 39 to 120.
[00:05:31] Mary: Yes. It couldn't have happened if stakeholders weren't on board and if we didn't have leadership support and backing behind that as well as like the capital to invest in that change. But so now we have composting. We had really kind of conquered the back of house composting.
So if you can think of composting, there's like the food scrap, food prep area, which is a pretty clean stream. So it's like your pineapple rinds or any other like carrot tops, like all that food trim or even some plate waste that comes back when students put the trays like on the conveyor belt and the kitchen manages it and so you have that back of house, but then you also have front of house and in front of house dining service areas that's where it can get much more difficult because rather than having like a trained staff manage that material and make sure there's no contamination. Then you have all of the students that are going through scot traditions then are, scraping their plate waste and having to separate that material.
So there's a lot of education and buy-in that you have to generate in order, in order to make that change.
[00:06:31] Adam: What sort of education do you need for that?
[00:06:33] Mary: So you need a lot of education. So first, like I always think of like how do you create an environment that it's easy to be good? So how do you create an environment where if you are making a choice as a consumer you know how to separate your material.
So like there's some industry best practices. So we have zero waste brand guidelines. So we have a color code, we have black for trash, green for composting, and red for recycling. So we're probably one of very few places that use red for recycling. And it's because our brand standards don't align, allow for blue obviously because of the school up north, but so we use more of a scarlet red.
So there's that color coding signaling and then also like labeling that says it uses consist labeling, so, trash composting and then recycling and then has icons and then word descriptors to explain what the icons mean. And then the other best practice is to have those bins co-located together. So like research shows if you have a trash bin on that side of the room, and then like a recycling bin on that side, the person is probably very busy and they're just gonna go to whichever bin is closest. But if you co-locate them, then they're forced to look at the signage and kind of make a decision.
So that's part of the education and then there's also a big in-person education like peer to peer education campaign that is needed. And so, we've relied on a team of volunteers. We've partnered with Tom Reeves in Student Life. Couldn't do it without Tom. As well as some external help to really educate students. And so part of that education is like tabling. And then we have free mini compost bins that we explain like, "Hey, this is a mini compost bin. Do you wanna sign up for it? This is what goes in it. And then if you're on campus and you see these green bins, this is how you use them."
[00:08:15] Adam: That's fascinating and one, I can see how that's very important if you're gonna triple your capacity for composting. So, and you did that in a very short timeframe.
[00:08:22] Mary: We did, and I've been so encouraged by the student response, I think last year we had over 2000 students sign up to get a mini bin and bring it into their residence hall or off campus residents and collect their food scraps separately.
[00:08:35] Dominique: The students that everyone thinks they're disengaged and on their phones, 2000 of them signed up to take a bin.
And thinking about 2000, that's correct me if I'm wrong, that's 2000 people who have volunteered to come and utilize a mini bin. But those mini compost bins are touching more than one person in its usage because they're sharing them with roommates. and those are finding homes that have, you know, more than one resident, correct?
[00:09:01] Mary: That's exactly right. Yeah. So there is a ripple effect there. And those are just the people who wanna do it in their rooms. We know that some students have said like, "Oh, I actually don't generate that much food waste or food scraps in my room, so it doesn't make sense for me to have this.
You mentioned a big part of this was having like leadership and support from different angles to make this possible. How did compost expansion get identified as a key initiative and what was that support? Sure. Absolutely.
Composting has been identified as a problem at Ohio State that wanted fixing since before my time. Like I did not invent composting. And so there were kind of fits and starts for composting where they'd start like different cafes. But the problem or the limiting factor was the haulers and the disposal sites nearby. A hauler would come into business and then they'd go out of business, and then we wouldn't have any place to take the material.
And so I think it's important to recognize that there's also like, you exist within your local context and in your local waste. And then the other piece of composting, so it had kind of started and stopped and nobody hates food waste more than the people who make the food. So dining services is such a champion. They want that the food that they prepare to be eaten.
[00:10:10] Dominique: Which at Ohio State, just to pause for a moment, Dining Services is an organization within the university, it's not like contracted. I feel like that it feels notable for those who may be working at universities, that dining is managed differently. Mm. So Ohio State Dining Services isn't a department, it's a organization within an organization.
[00:10:26] Mary: So they are situated within student life but they're not a contracted service like a lot of universities have, right? And because of that, I think we have a lot of longevity within our staff members. And there are some really dedicated champions to sustainability within those groups. So there has been funding that over the past decade that has been awarded a lot through internal grants.
The President and Provost Council on Sustainability administered sustainability grants. And so there were some composting funding that helped establish a few different systems like the grind to energy system or pulpers that then break down the material either into like a sludge or to kind of like a fluff where the water is extracted at high generating locations. And then we also were able to get a composting truck, which we have a vacuum truck that manages some of those systems.
[00:11:14] Adam: Truck?
[00:11:14] Mary: It's a truck. It's like one of those silver trucks that you probably see on the road that's like a cylinder that carries liquid. And so, the grind to energy system at our central production kitchen, it goes basically down like a giant garbage disposal. And then like you add a little bit of water and so it becomes like kind of liquified.
[00:11:30] Adam: Oh.
[00:11:30] Dominique: I think what's really cool about this is there's so many different spaces around campus, so like thinking about it broadly, there's students, which means there's residence halls where they live, there's classrooms they go to for class, there's also spaces where they grab coffee and grab meals. So like dining spaces is where dining services does their thing. . And then there's also like a hotel on campus and there's like traditions locations, which are buffet style food spaces, which are different than going to a cafe where you order like a sandwich and leave with a sandwich. You instead go in and have like a buffet experience, but all of that manages food and waste in a little bit of a different way. And so you've been able to implement different solutions across campus tailoring it to the space you're trying to capture
[00:12:13] Mary: That's exactly right. And there's also like event spaces, right? There's the Schottenstein Center, or Ohio Stadium.
[00:12:18] Dominique: The Ohio Union is a whole different thing.
[00:12:19] Mary: Or like Woody Hayes where the athletes are fed.
[00:12:22] Dominique: You literally run the waste management for a city. Which I know you know, but I think for those listening that are thinking it's just a university, it has these confines like you really have to be pivoting to all these different considerations while you're also constantly bringing in, students are bringing in waste from outside the Ohio State campus from the community, from getting food or sharing meals out.
[00:12:44] Mary: Yeah. I think it's important too to think of like, you have to tailor your solution a little bit to each different space 'cause each location will have different constraints. Either it's staffing turnover, or dock space, or the type of material they're producing. So you're right like, you have to get a little creative and you also have to really work with a facility manager.
[00:13:02] Adam: That just accentuates like this issue that you have with logistics. And you mentioned earlier about how that was a challenge if a partner would go out of business or, or things like that. What have you done to really solidify the logistics behind Ooh, that?
[00:13:14] Mary: Ooh.
So we are really lucky because we have an internal hauling operation. But part of the other thing that happened two years ago is we from the leader of administration and planning, we received like $300,000 to make that change. With that money, we were able to buy a small composting tipper truck that could tip toters. And so we have that internal hauling and we do that ' cause it makes sense.
We have like space density. And then we take that material, we put it in like a larger, what's called like a roll off dumpster, and then that's taken offsite to the composting facility.
It does two things. One, we have control over that. And so, like, I know like Tim and Corey are the guys that typically run the compost route and they feel really responsible for that. And there's any feedback like, "Hey, this isn't working at this location". They can tell us. Then we can quickly reach out and respond to the facilities manager. But then the other piece of it too is that it saves on costs.
[00:14:05] Dominique: So you mentioned the 300,000 being
a big catalyst. Is there any other big step that was taken kind of in like pushing things forward or was that the real, like that got things really moving?
[00:14:15] Mary: So back in, I think it was 2022, the president and the leader of Administration and Planning, they taught a class, like a real niche class, I think it had 12 or 16 students and they were challenged throughout their semester as their final semester project to create a project on campus that would reduce carbon emissions by I think it was 500 metric tons, and two of the four groups said they want composting. And so like having that student voice say, this is what we think is actionable and what will make a difference and what we want to see was definitely a catalytic event.
[00:14:48] Dominique: That's really cool. That's the answer you hope to hear, you know, that it was from a student. That's really awesome. And then we kind of touched this for a moment there of like all the different things kinda happening on campus. And I wanna ask you like, what does compost expansion look like day to day?
But would you mind also kind of running through before that, like all the places kind of food waste is captured? So I guess like to start us off, like there is these grind to energy machines that then feed into with the digestion. That's one way that food waste is getting diverted. There is these compost of offsites where anybody can bring their compost bucket or really any bucket and contribute to having this accessible way to drop food scraps and send it to the right place.
There's food collection bins like compost collection bins. Front of house and back of house you mentioned. there anything else in terms of like spaces we should have in our minds of where compost is seen on campus?
[00:15:38] Mary: So every residence hall has a composting bed in their lobby. So students who have a composting bin in their room can then have like a central location within their building where they can take that material. So that's one. And I'm trying to think, I think there's a couple of locations within the hospital systems as well.
And then there's the new Healthy Community Center, which is on the east side of Columbus. They have composting. I was really excited, like, I went to take a class at the Healthy Community Center just to out a new recipe and the chef like made an announcement and said like, you need to make sure before you do anything, like throw your material away, this is the composting bin. And did like kind of an informal talk. And that like little piece for me really showed like, this is now infused in the culture and people are taking responsibility.
[00:16:20] Dominique: That's amazing when you kind of get to be a participant.
Yeah.
That's like very special and cool.
[00:16:24] Mary: I mean, and that's exactly what I want, right.
But to answer your question, I think that's most of the locations.
[00:16:29] Dominique: And I think the residence hall piece is interesting of like, if listeners can remember what it felt like to maybe be a college student. Now you've put composting in the same space as recycling and trash from a residence hall resident perspective that all I have to do to empty my compost bucket is what I would do for my other materials. It's not a new step, it's just added into the lineup.
[00:16:50] Mary: Yeah, that's exactly right.
[00:16:51] Dominique: And then day to day, you touched on the hauling pieces.
Is there anything else that happens day to day that you have to kind of monitor or manage when it comes to compost expansion?
[00:17:00] Mary: I think the people who don't get enough credit, in our society, but also on campus sometimes is our custodial staff, like the custodial environmental services piece is so critical, right? So we have like different colored liners to distinguish between, like black is for trash, clear's for recycling, and then green is for composting. And it's a critical step for them to make sure that they keep that material segregated and then take it out to the correct external bin.
And part of that too is like quality control checks engagement with them, make sure they have training. We have like an online zero waste certification training for all folks and facilities that they take annually. But yeah, so, so that's part of it too.
[00:17:38] Adam: The last thing that I wanna say about composting before we move on. I think it's important to remember in our like why composting is important. Like 30 to 40% of the food that's produced in the United States is wasted while one in eight children in Franklin County are food insecure.
[00:17:52] Mary: So like, clearly there's a disconnect within our system and that's what we're attempting to remedy. You know, nearly 1 million pounds of food goes to the Franklin County sanitary landfill every day. And if you're a family, a lot of that food happens at the household level. Like if you're a family of four, you're wasting probably around two grand that you're often throwing into the trash, hopefully you're composting.
So in addition to composting, we also look upstream. I know dining services is doing a lot to like right size what they purchase and then measure the material that is actually going to waste.
[00:18:23] Dominique: That's amazing to think about. Aryeh Alex, as a guest on the podcast mentioned the phrase that like I forget is exactly how I worded it, but like, it's not a resource problem when it comes to people being hungry and food waste. Like it's a logistics problem. Yes.
Which I think is also really cool for me, hearing you unpack kind of like the operations side of how you've made this possible of like you've leaned into logistics to kind of solve the zero waste problem on campus. And I think that, from my point of view, leaning into these things with a logistics point of view is gonna be the actual solution, because that's the problem we have. There's enough food there for the fact that people are out there and are hungry. So it's just very interesting and I'm glad you mentioned that.
[00:19:01] Mary: And I do wanna give a shout out to the Student Food Recovery Network. They won a grant to get a vehicle so they could collect, so often there's surplus food that is still edible. But like the problem is that someone needs to drive it to our hungry neighbors. And so the Student Food Recovery Network, they go around like five or six days a week in the morning and they go to all the different locations that have like pans of food that can be eaten, and then they drive it to our hungry.
Yeah. It's so amazing. I think it's just incredible that students are getting up and giving their early mornings to do that before they go to classes.
[00:19:33] Dominique: Do those values feed into your diversion goals?
[00:19:35] Mary: They do. Yep.
[00:19:37] Dominique: Okay. It's another thing we haven't talked about of just like recovery.
Mm-hmm.
And it's amazing that it's a student led effort.
[00:19:42] Adam: If we look at all the work that you've accomplished what's some of the impact in numbers that you've achieved?
[00:19:47] Mary: The biggest thing to think about is we are a city within a city and so we generate about 25,000 tons of waste a year.
[00:19:55] Dominique: Which ton's an elephant? Which is also hard to imagine, so the Ohio Stadium, when it's full is a hundred thousand, take a quarter of Ohio State Stadium when it's in its full swing for a big game and then make all of those people elephants. But that, I mean, that's a lot.
[00:20:13] Mary: Yes. So it's a lot of materials that we're using. Our guiding metric for zero waste is diversion. So we've increased our diversion rate over the past decade in 2015 from 29.2% to in FY 24. And really like where most folks plateau was like 32, 34, a lot of cities plateau.
So we've well exceeded that. Also, I think the other metric in terms of impact is just sign up. So we have over 2000 students who signed up for a bin for the past two years, as well as like faculty and staff engagement. 4,000 faculty and staff have signed up and we've given away like mini bins for them to be able to bring their material to campus.
The other thing that we haven't talked about is just reuse and waste prevention. One exciting project is the Student Life Dining Services.
They launched their reusable container program. And so rather than, so if you go to a traditions dining hall, and you could do takeout instead of getting a single use container, even though it was compostable, it's environmentally better to use like a reusable one that then gets washed and put back into the system. And so they've eliminated nearly 250,000 single use containers through that effort.
[00:21:22] Dominique: Can you explain briefly how that works? How the reusable container program like actually functions. How does it touch a student's hands then get back to the university to be put back into circulation?
[00:21:32] Mary: Sure. So when they go to order, like their meal and they say, "I wanna get a to go meal", they have a code on their phone within their GrubHub app, which is how they order their food. And then there's like a, a corresponding code on the container identifier. So they basically like scan the container. So then it's it's linked to them. They go get their food and then they have three days to return it. Actually, what's great about it too is like they get a text message response. So just like a little nudge like, "Hey, you have one day to return".
[00:21:59] Dominique: Let's say it's sitting in their fridge still with food in it. It gets a reminder of like, "Hey, like, you gotta bring that thing back."
[00:22:04] Mary: Yeah. And there's a charge associated with it. And so I think one of the most exciting pieces of it is that there's been like a 99% return rate. And a lot of these programs fail at the return level where they'll have a reusable system, but then it just gets stashed away and it doesn't actually get reused. It just gets like, put in your backpack.
[00:22:23] Adam: So 99% return rate sounds really high.
[00:22:26] Mary: It is. Yes
[00:22:27] Dominique: Especially for a quarter of a million units. That's a really, really impressive return rate.
[00:22:32] Mary: And we're the perfect microcosm to implement that type of program. Like we have one app where you buy your food from. The students have certain dining plans and like they're basically linked to their financial system. So it really has been a good test. Our leader's Yahmed in dining services, so he tested the traditions dining model where his friend over at Boston University tested like what a cafe reusable system might look like and then they shared learnings and started to think about how they can expand.
But in terms of recycling another, piece that explains that operational efficiency is, sustainability is a program that Molly Kathleen worked at. Led with our custodial teams just to do a bin and liner reduction program to rightsize the number of containers on campus. So we have a great zero waste intern team that went around and audited all the buildings.
And basically what ends up happening is like bins are just placed haphazardly everywhere. And so co-locating bins, making sure they're standardized, have the right signage, but then also eliminating bins that are seem unnecessary. And through that right sizing. There's like five different zones on campus at the time when they were doing this. And they've eliminated like a hundred thousand plastic bags because like the custodian's job was to change the bag no matter like how full it was because there was like a fear of odors and flies or but if you just eliminate that, you reduce the purchase of the University of a hundred thousand plastic bags, which is just in those, like that small number of buildings is a savings of like $15,000.
And then we're doing that Campuswide.
[00:24:02] Dominique: Again, data leading the way.
[00:24:03] Mary: Yes, yes. Well, we found through our waste characterization audit that 6% of our waste room was just plastic bags. And it should be closer to like under 1%.
[00:24:12] Dominique: Wow. Very cool. That's really interesting. If you were to have a piece of advice for yourself a few years ago, do you have any, any thoughts maybe Mary five, 10 years ago??
[00:24:21] Mary: I would say just like, first of all, I think sustainability is a really challenging field, and I know you're doing this whole podcast series on sustainability, but it is evolving so quickly and there's so many technical aspects that you have to kind of be an expert in that it can feel overwhelming. And so I think when I started my journey, I was always feeling like I don't know enough or like I also need to be an expert in this field and I need to get this degree now in order to be good at my job.
What I think I've learned is to rely on the experts around me and to ask good questions and to really realize that you can lead resource stewardship efforts. But only if you have the engineers in the room and the maintenance folks in the room, and the drivers in the room and they're the ones that can help guide your strategy.
I think I also would tell myself. Just to ask for help more.
[00:25:09] Dominique: I also need that advice often.
[00:25:11] Mary: Yeah. Just like you don't have to be good at everything
[00:25:14] Dominique: And that pairs well with the idea that to be in the world of sustainability, you're gonna be taking on like a multifaceted role.
[00:25:20] Mary: Mm-hmm.
[00:25:21] Dominique: So being comfortable looking for support where you need it, when you're trying to be all these things.
[00:25:26] Mary: Yes and to recognize that like incremental progress is progress. Like sometimes you can take on, it's so easy to wanna like, what's that business term like?
Boil the
[00:25:33] Dominique: ocean.
[00:25:34] Mary: Yeah, there you go. Like,
[00:25:37] Dominique: I hate that I was so quick to know that.
[00:25:39] Mary: Like set your KPIs, decide what's important to you, and make progress on those items.
[00:25:45] Dominique: That was good advice. I needed that one today anyway,
[00:25:47] Mary: Mm. Yeah.
[00:25:48] Adam: Well, thanks for sharing everything about what's going on at OSU and all the great progress that has been made. How can people connect with you and be an advocate for what you're doing there?
[00:25:57] Mary: They can always google FOD sustainability at Ohio State, or they can reach out to recycle@osu.edu.
[00:26:04] Adam: we'll put those links in the show notes as well.
[00:26:06] Dominique: As always, our guests have found a unique way to champion sustainability. We're here to put real names and stories behind the idea that no matter your background, career or interests, you really can contribute in the fight against climate change.
You can find our episodes at thegreenchampions.com. If you wanna stay in the loop, give us a review and follow us in your favorite podcast platform. If you have questions about climate change or sustainability, you can be just on our website at thegreenchampions.com. Our music is by Zane Dweik. Thanks for joining us in another episode of Green Champions, we'll dig into our sustainability success story in our next episode.