CREDIT: FRANCIS SIEBERT
London campus students will start to notice the bins changing to green bins in washrooms.

Fanshawe College began replacing washroom trash bins with green composting bins for paper towels and tissues on its London campus on February 27 with the goal of reducing waste production.

While the green bins are only being installed at the London campus right now, the plan is to expand the project to the downtown and remote campuses, according to Mary-Lee Townsend, Fanshawe’s sustainability co-ordinator.

The 2013-14 Waste Audit done under the direction of Fanshawe revealed that more than 20,500 kilograms of the college’s waste to landfill was paper towels, amounting to 10 per cent of the school’s total waste to landfill.

The same study also revealed that 91 per cent of washroom garbage on campus is paper towels and therefore considered a clean waste stream. A clean waste stream consists primarily of one type of material and is mostly clear of contamination. They are therefore easy to divert.

The problem with paper towels is that they can’t be recycled because it’s already made of recycled paper, according to Stanford Magazine. One alternative is to send paper towels to the landfill, but there, they break down and generate methane. Methane is a greenhouse gas that is more than 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

“You think about the amount of people that use paper towel, so if we, as an organization, can help mitigate that, I think that’s a really good thing,” Townsend said.

Every year, Fanshawe does a waste audit to see how the school can improve its sustainability.

“It’s just a way to remind ourselves every year to keep reducing,” she said.

Recently, the college started changing the design of its recycling bins to get more people to recycle.

“We’re trying to get all of our bins re-labeled, re-identified and trying to make it easier to understand what goes where.”

The college also works with specific departments and areas of the college to see how each can improve in terms of sustainability.

Townsend encourages students who have sustainability ideas for Fanshawe or questions to get in touch with her at sustainability@fanshawec.ca.