Ryan LarkAt the start of 2020, the University of Kentucky (UK) embarked on an exciting new partnership with WestRock, a materials recycling center and paperboard manufacturing company. Since then, all of the items you place in the blue, mixed recycling containers on campus have been collected and transported to WestRock’s local facility in Louisville, Kentucky.
WestRock’s facility in Louisville is what’s known in the world of waste management as a materials recovery facility (MRF). An MRF is a facility that receives, separates, and prepares recyclables for further processing. While some of the sorting is done by hand, WestRock uses both mechanical and physical processes as well as artificial intelligence to sort the received items by type of material (e.g. aluminum, paper, cardboard). Then, the now-sorted materials are sent to a baler to condense them into large bales, preparing the materials for easy transport.
Globally, some concerns have risen regarding the emissions created during the transport of waste, but Westrock’s Louisville facility has a secret weapon—trains. Located adjacent to a railroad, WestRock loads their neatly baled recyclables onto train cars where they are shipped to corresponding facilities across the Midwest, South East, and Mid-Atlantic regions in order to be recycled into new products. Shipping by railcar is about four times more fuel efficient than trucks. Plus, rail cars can handle three to four times the capacity of the average truck. This all reduces the potential greenhouse gas emissions created from material transport by up to 75%.
These innovative processes are one of the factors that allow WestRock to accept a large volume of materials and in turn allow them to accept a greater breadth of materials, which is great news for recycling here on campus. In fact, this relationship with WestRock has allowed the university to expand what is now able to be accepted in the mixed recycling containers. Some of the newly accepted items include:
- Plastic cups
- Plastic to-go food containers
- Plastic jars
- Yogurt cups
- Paper cups
- Brown and white paper bags
- Cartons
- Aluminum foil
- Aluminum pans
- Frozen and refrigerated boxes
All of these are now able to be recycled in the blue, mixed recycling containers across all of campus (for a full list of what is accepted, click here!).
Expanding what is recyclable at UK will also play a vital role in the university’s goal to become a zero-waste campus by 2030.
This means 90% of all waste produced on campus will be diverted from the landfill via composting, donating, reusing, and, of course, recycling among other diversion methods. With UK reaching a 47% diversion rate at the end of 2021, the university is on track to meet that goal.
But, we can’t do it alone! We need your help. Be sure to check out UK Recycling’s website to learn about all the initiatives happening across campus and how you can help us in reaching our goal. Also, follow us on social media @ukyrecycles on Instagram, Tik Tok, Twitter, and Facebook to stay up to date on all of the exciting things we’re doing.
