Sustainable Waste Management in Central

Ohio

By

John Schlichting, Jiaqi Guo, Hanyu Li, Haohan He

Team 2
Engineering 2367 / Summer II / 4793
The Ohio State University

Prepared for
OSU ​Facilities Operations and Development (FOD)
2003 Millikin Road
Columbus, OH 43210

Abstract:​ This is a proposal for Ohio State University Facilities Operation and Department (FOD)
for reducing plastic waste and managing sustainable waste. In recent years the environment
has drastically been affected by plastic pollution. Public health has been impacted as well.
People are unaware of the challenges in recycling plastic waste. Specifically, at OSU, there are
plenty of students among campus, but the plastic recycling rate remains low. FOD supports
construction and maintenance services for OSU. In order to reduce the plastic waste and
increase the plastic recycling rate, this proposal discusses how to eliminate plastic products
from campus and the benefits of a university operated material recovery facility. Further
information will be discussed later in this proposal.

July 22, 2019

 Introduction
“As investors in domestic recycling and circular economy infrastructure in the U.S., we see what
China has decided to do as very positive.” - Ron Gonen, founder of Closed Loop, an investment
platform to help municipalities fund recycling initiatives.

In 2017, China adopted the National Sword policy banning plastic waste entering its ports
beginning on January 1, 2018. Plastic waste comes from many different markets and sources
globally. However, the U.S. plays a significant role in reducing plastic waste and every piece
counts. For 25 years, many developed countries including the U.S. sent their plastic and solid
waste to China instead of recycling domestically. Since 1992, China has imported 106 million
metric tons of plastic waste. Collectively, China and Hong Kong imported 72.4% of all plastic
waste generated since 1988. This ban indicates a shift in responsibility; developed countries
must start managing their waste properly. Most waste management systems were created with
sustainable intentions; but sorting and processing costs coupled with market factors steered
programs to simply export the waste. This unsustainable approach must change. The ban
impacted the state of Ohio, local companies like Rumpke and SWACO reinvested in local
recycling infrastructure to cope with the surplus of waste. This market surplus enables recycling
services to refuse contaminated materials, increase the quality of a recycled product, and
generate better profits. Creating the infrastructure of a circular economy keeps money within
local economies, provides jobs and health benefits to communities, and prevents waste from
entering the environment. The Ohio State University has embraced its role as a sustainable
leader within the Columbus community and has set ambitious goals to achieve zero waste in
2025 by diverting campus waste from landfills. This proposal presents an OSU materials
recovery facility to achieve these goals while capitalizing on the market surplus and benefiting
long-term from sustainable waste management.

Statement of Problem
Sustainable waste management represents a serious and complex environmental problem in all
communities. Consumer markets have and will continue to produce waste as a byproduct for
products and services rendered. The large variety and amount of municipal solid waste (MSW)
makes collecting, sorting, processing, and recycling difficult. Currently most municipal recycling
programs landfill or export plastics due to contamination limiting its recyclability. Plastic is an
essential component of the modern economy; plastic’s ubiquity and relative low cost has led
society to disregard its finite nature. Plastic shapes the consumer experience; the moldable,
long-lasting, lightweight, and cheap material enables companies to market, package, and ship
products efficiently and economically around the world. The life of a plastic product is generally
a short one; the consumer buys the product, consumes the product, and tosses it for collection.
But plastic does not go away or decompose. Almost every piece of plastic created still exists
today; that old toothbrush, those single-use bottles, and countless shopping bags represent the
fossils of modern humans and the death of many animals. In general, when consumers toss that
plastic it ends up as waste in oceans, waterways, and communities instead of recycled
products. Plastic pollution negatively impacts many ecosystems, the environment, and public
health at large.
 Figure 1 - Turtle deformed by plastic​: A red-eared slider figure eight shaped by a plastic
six-pack ring

Figure 2 - Bird starved on a full stomach​: 272 plastic pieces found inside a young albatross
Countless videos and studies have demonstrated animals confusing plastic for prey, suffocating
from entanglement, and mistakenly feeding their young pieces of plastic. Figures 1 and 2
exhibit the extent of harm plastic incurs on marine life. While plastic may not impact Ohio’s
wildlife directly, it accumulates at each downriver confluence leading to large amounts entering
the oceans.

Problem Background
To this day, plastic continues to enter our food chain and eventually arrives on our dinner
tables. The sun’s UV radiation combined with the physical motion of ocean currents causes
plastic to degrade into small particles called microplastics. These along with larger plastic and
waste materials coalesce in gyres located throughout the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans.
There are 5 major gyres of garbage spanning areas larger than Texas. The surrounding
ecosystems have been drastically impacted. Researchers have found birds starved to death with
stomachs full of over 250 pieces of plastic, totaling over 14% of their total body masses.
Microbes within these ecosystems also digest the plastic particles with chemical conversions
that form new fat-soluble compounds. These compounds readily enter surrounding organisms
and in this way plastic chemicals make their way up the food chain and into us. Plastic pollution
affects bodies of freshwater as well. Lake Erie presents a great natural resource that has been
neglected in recent years. Every year, 18 tons of trash are removed by volunteers and more
than 85% of the debris is made up of plastic. There are 46,000 parts of plastic per square
kilometer of plastic in Lake Erie. This is the second highest portion among the great lakes. To
better protect this valuable resource; the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund and
local activists developed a bill of rights for Lake Erie. This bill of rights not only outlines resource
preservation within the lakes, it personalizes the Great Lakes and demonstrates the
community’s moral responsibility to engage in resource stewardship.

Several legislative acts were implemented during the 1970s environmentalist movement with
the intent to generate sustainable interactions between society and the environment. The
Clean Air Act of 1963 was created to control air pollution by establishing national standards for
monitoring and removing atmospheric contaminants. The Clean Water Act of 1972 was created
to manage water pollution through discharge guidelines, technical tools, and financial aid. The
Resource Conservation Recovery Act (RCRA) of 1976 represents the most comprehensive
framework for managing solid waste from “cradle-to-grave”. Particularly, RCRA defines
hazardous and nonhazardous waste and establishes methods for the disposal of heavy metals,
chemicals, electronics, and oils. RCRA propelled the U.S. to reevaluate energy and natural
resource conservation, reduce the volume of waste generated through better sourcing and
recycling, and protect human health by managing waste with environmentally safe methods.

With this backdrop, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and the Ohio General Assembly
adopted House Bill 592 based on 1976 regulations to manage Ohio’s problematic waste
program. HB 592 established waste management districts, enacted a state-wide waste
management plan, and required the installation of best available technologies for all solid
waste facilities. The Franklin County Board of Commissioners created the Solid Waste Authority
of Central Ohio (SWACO) in 1989 to manage over 1 million tons of municipal solid waste (MSW)
generated every year. MSW generation directly relates to population; changes in population
require revaluation and expansion of collection services and facility capabilities. From 2010 to
2014, Franklin County grew by 1.35% to a population of 1,231,000. The City of Columbus
represents 835,897 people or two thirds of SWACO’s market and projects to grow 12% by 2032
(Ohio Development Services Agency, 2014). There have been several efforts to address
Columbus’s waste; most notably the Columbus Refuse and Coal Fired Municipal Electric Plant.
This power plant began operating in 1983 and on average incinerated 3,000 tons of trash
producing 90 megawatts of electricity. Incineration as a method of waste management reduces
the volume of waste and can generate electricity, but there are plenty of negatives. This power
plant was demolished in 2004 due to increased levels of the carcinogen dioxin measured in the
local atmosphere and soil.
The Ohio State University has its main campus located within the City of Columbus and enrolls
66,444 students while employing approximately 47,686 full-time employees. These students
represent a transitory population and do not count in the Franklin County Census. However, the
waste generated daily by students and student events counts substantially. Sporting events,
graduation ceremonies, and concerts bring thousands of additional people to campus
generating off-cycle loads that can strain operations. OSU’s Facilities Operations and
Development (FOD) created the Energy Services and Sustainability (ESS) program to achieve
fiscal and environmental responsibility to waste management. Current zero waste efforts focus
on waste generated at large campus events. OSU has established itself as a leader in
sustainability by embracing the challenges of sustainability. By 2025, OSU aims to achieve
carbon neutrality, reduce building energy consumption by 25%, reduce potable water
consumption by 5%, divert 90% of waste from landfills, increase locally sourced food to 40%,
and implement university wide standards for resource stewardship. This report displays OSU’s
important role in sustainable waste management and discusses how to achieve these goals
daily by involving the campus community and reinvesting in current waste systems.

Objectives
The proposal objectives include:
● Achieve zero waste every day in addition to game day

● Reduce single-use plastics sold on campus

● Divert campus waste from landfills

● Increase on and off campus recycling

● Engage students with their role within waste management

● Kick-start zero waste goals by constructing necessary long-term management systems

Proposed Program
Current Situation
This program identifies the following problems that OSU can address:
● Even with established recycling systems, many consumers and students choose to not
recycle due to perceived feasibility, a lack of time, and misinformation on recyclables.

● Many companies make products cheaply without adequate forethought for

post-consumer disposal; while rapid production benefits the modern economy,
unsustainable designs force the responsibility of recycling onto the consumer. OSU
permits campus vendors to sell these products.

● OSU and Columbus project to grow substantially over the next decade; landfills prevent
full utilization of land space by limiting future community developments and often leak
contaminants into the local groundwater.
 ● Plastic enters food chains and arrives on the dinner table; local and global ecosystems
must adapt to the impact of microplastics and other waste.

● While OSU provides on-campus recycling and composting services, off-campus students
generally lack the information and support to adequately recycle or compost.

Proposal Solutions
Due to the complexity and extent of the problems facing OSU’s sustainability goals, the
following represent three areas where additional efforts and resources will have cumulative
and long-lasting impacts:

Campus Vendors
The Ohio State University campus offers over 17 on campus dining locations and many off
campus restaurants serving students. The Columbus campus encompasses over 1200 buildings
serving thousands of students and faculty. During mealtimes, especially the lunch rush, many
students go to dining traditions, coffee shops, or food trucks creating fluctuations in waste
generation. In addition to day-to-day operations, vendors profit greatly from campus events
and produce large amounts of waste. OSU supports vendors in achieving zero waste through
sustainable event guides and incentives, but the university still permits single-use plastics on
campus. Customer convenience and vendor profits make strong cases for using this plastic.
Plastic allows dining locations to serve food readily, to store food longer, and lower their
bottom lines. Because plastic containers are inexpensive and easy to carry, they have become
popular. While most Buckeyes may not know the consequences of single-use plastics, removing
the option or providing an alternative enables new opportunities for sustainable consumers. In
order to reduce plastic wastes among campus, Ohio State University needs to inform food
servers not use plastic products anymore. Using other materials instead of plastic ones would
reduce the campus plastic waste generated. Thereby this change would help OSU achieve
sustainability goals, in addition to preventing Columbus’s waste from entering the environment.

Materials Recovery Facility

A materials recovery facility, also called a materials recycling facility, receives, separates and
prepares recyclable materials for production by end-user manufacturers. This is a facility that
receives blended materials and then uses machines and labors to separate and pack materials
for further recycling work. MRF can recover up to 45% of recyclable materials (Leblanc, 2019).
Haulers dump the mixed materials onto a tipping floor by using bulldozers. The conveyor will
send the materials into a first-level sorter. This sorter is called drum feeder. It will regulate the
density of the materials on the conveyor so that people can easily pick out the materials that
hard to be recycled. Then, the materials will go to a pre-sorting station. Workers will stand
along the conveyor and remove the trash, plastic bags and other materials for other proper
degradation. Powerful magnets will separate steel and tin containers before materials are
getting to the next step. Glass containers will be separated from plastic containers by using a
density blower. A density blower will bring plastics to a new conveyor belt and workers will
separate different kinds of plastics. These processes enable better recycling rates, specifically
with categories of plastic that are currently landfilled. OSU already has several initiatives in
place to address the food waste on campus; however, many plastic products such as styrofoam,
coffee cups, plastic bags, and plastics three through seven are not recycled. An MRF does not
address all these problems, for example infrared light commonly used to sort plastics cannot
recognize black plastics due to their reflectance and “tanglers” such as plastic bags or cords
continue to clog shredding equipment. However, an MRF provides OSU with better
management of campus waste and a better method of achieving these zero waste goals.
Currently OSU collects a majority of campus waste at Lincoln Tower before handing it off to
SWACO or Rumpke trucks. Establishing an MRF near Lincoln or Morrill tower would not disrupt
current logistics and would keep operations centralized on campus providing better collection
services campus-wide.

Buckeye Culture
Students and faculty play a large role in pre-sorting plastic waste from regular solid waste. This
step becomes crucial with mass amounts of consumer waste. Within OSU there are several
common sources of plastic waste; student life events, graduation ceremonies, laboratory
waste, administrative waste, dining traditions, and dorm waste. Each source presents a
different section of the Buckeye Community with the opportunity to make the collection step of
recycling work for everyone. OSU continues to push towards a zero-waste campus, in order to
fulfill this vision the university will require everyone’s consistent efforts. Encouraging the
campus culture to reflect the zero-waste goals with financial incentives, supporting programs
like Recyclemania and the Sustainability Institute, involving student clubs such as Students for
Recycling or Green Buckeyes, and investing in educational opportunities regarding sustainability
demonstrates this progressive vision as realized today. While providing adequate collection
receptacles enables the first step of recycling; some designs do not communicate the difference
between accepted products and those not accepted. Engaging students in the recycling process
ensures the reduction of initial contamination as more consumers understand their role in
recycling and differentiate between recyclables and non-recyclables. ​SWACO operates drop-off
recycling program to serve off-campus students and Franklin residents since 2016. SWACO has
expanded the program to the whole Columbus to keep pace. Besides providing locations for
waste management, SWACO offered instructions by listing items not accepted and thus, build
an understanding about recycling in people's mind as well. Informing students transitioning
from dorms to off-campus housing about SWACO’s programs would greatly impact recycling
rates of Buckeyes.

Qualifications and Experience

This proposal demonstrates a body of research into the background of Ohio’s recycling
industry, the general market trends, the Ohio State University’s role within the State of Ohio,
and the current objectives and operations underway at OSU. This proposal presents sound
solutions to this complex problem; if enacted these solutions would cost OSU initial capital,
however the benefits of zero-waste and better waste management are priceless. In a time
when climate change and global pollution challenge and threaten all modern societies,
developed nations and resource-rich states must step up and lead sustainably.
Program Budget
A material Recovery Facility is used to receive, sort and process recyclable materials and serve
as an intermediate processing step between waste collection and sale of processed recyclable
materials. The total estimated cost for a material recovery facility (MRF) is $46,500,000. Please
refer to Table 1 below for cost breakdown. In the budget, the design cost is $1,500,000. This is
used for designation such as landscape, architecture, mechanics, electricity, etc. The
construction fee is $35,000,000. It is used for building up a workshop for MRF. It includes the
materials and the building. The cost of equipment, such as trucks and big machines, is
$5,000,000. After purchasing the equipment, some experts need to help install the machines
and teach workers how to operate them. The estimated facility size is 18000 square size in
order to serve the waste recycling needs for 66,444 students and approximately 47,686
full-time employees. The OSU campus will gain many advantages long-term benefits in
operating an MRF. By implementing an MRF, the environment will be protected significantly.
The amount of biogenic CO2 in kg will reduce from 4800 to 2076 (Ardulino, Berto, & Arena,
2017). The proposed MRF will be able to process all of recyclables on campus and saving
disposal costs per ton by $50. The extra economic activities and job opportunity will bring non
estimated vitality to the economics of university, and to Columbus as well.
Table 1: Budget Breakdown
MRF Cost Chart
Design $1,500,000
Construction $35,000,000
Equipment $5,000,000
Installation & Operation $5,000,000
Total Cost $46,500,000

Conclusion
This is a proposal about plastic pollution and sustainable waste management in central Ohio.
Plastics pollution is one of the most difficult problems to overcome. It has been blended into
people’s life. If the plastic waste can’t be dealt with properly. There will be many consequences
that can’t be imagined. In order to reduce the plastic waste, OSU could build our own material
recovery facility. Right now, Ohio State University only recycles specific kinds of plastics as
dictated by local recycling services. If the material recovery facility is built, ideally more and
more plastic waste can be recycled. Besides, in order to achieve the goal of reducing plastic
waste, OSU needs to control the sources of plastics. In other words, stop using plastic products
among the campus, such as campus vendors. Also, education about plastic waste is expected to
deliver to everyone on campus. When all people are trying to reduce the plastic waste, the
buckeye culture will be established automatically. Thank you for taking your time reading our
proposal. If you have any questions, please contact ​schlichting.13@osu.edu​.
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