Waste at Ohio State

Can you believe that Ohio State creates over 18,500 tons of waste in a year?  That's over 37 million pounds between our Columbus campus, our regional campuses and all of our Wexner Medical Center facilities. That's a LOT of trash!

Ohio State has a goal of diverting 90 percent of our waste away from landfills by 2025, so that we can be considered a Zero Waste campus ("zero waste" is defined as 90 percent diversion). In the 2020-2021 academic year, we diverted 35 percent of our waste via reusing, reducing and recycling across all of our facilities.  While we still have a ways to go, we have made some incredible progress and continue to look for ways that we can continue to divert waste from the landfills.  

Our students play a HUGE role in our zero waste efforts.  Check out the links to the left to see how Ohio State is managing its waste and how you can help.