Zero Waste Western

About Us

Zero Waste Western is a program of the AS Recycle Center that collaborates with the WWU community to provide responsible waste sorting education and implement facility changes to reduce waste. We are two, part-time student employees. The team conducts waste audits on university garbage, recycling, and compost systems to increase awareness of the environmental, social, and economic impacts of waste. Zero Waste Western educates community members through presentations, social media, and workshops.

Request a Meeting

Want to learn about zero waste? Collaborate on a project? Need an interview for your article? Our new Bookings page makes it easier than ever to schedule time to meet with the Zero Waste Coordinators. You can find a time that works for you and book a meeting. Meetings are automatically generated as Teams meetings; if you prefer an in-person meeting, please let us know in the notes section. All meetings entered through our Bookings page will be treated as requests, which we will do our best to accommodate. An auto-reply confirmation will be generated when you schedule, and we will personally reach out to follow up if needed.

Program? Club? Zero Waste Western vs. Students 4 Zero Waste — Clearing up the Confusion

This website is managed by Zero Waste Western, a program of the Western Washington University Associated Students (AS) Recycle Center. The program is run by two part-time, student-employee Zero Waste Coordinators, who work closely with AS Recycle Center staff, managers, and the Recycling Educator.

By contrast, Students for Zero Waste was a student-run club (not a paid position) and is no longer active at the time of writing (December 2023).

The former President of the Students for Zero Waste club was hired by Zero Waste Western in June 2023. Since then, the Students for Zero Waste club has been inactive. If you have interest in reviving the club, please fill out a Bookings meeting request, either with both Zero Waste Coordinators or Emma only.

Our Data

Zero Waste Western conducts waste audits of on campus recycling and waste disposal stations. This allows us to better analyze the rate of contamination and wrongly sorted material. This also helps us identify the most common sorting mistakes and plan educational campaigns to minimize our waste on campus.

If you would like more detailed data please reach out via ZeroWaste@wwu.edu