.

UNCW Recycling Expansion Initiative

June 2012

Executive Summary

UNCW Recycling is on a mission to recover all economically feasible waste commodities from our

community to build a sustainable business with the vision to reduce UNCW’s landfill destined waste to

ZERO. UNCW Recycling is currently operating in a facility not designed for this function with limited

access, public visibility, and very constricted space for growth. It is the desire for Recycling to expand to

a new location with easy access to the public and a state of the art facility designed to maximize utility

and efficiency and to allow educational engagement and expansion of the program into new areas of

waste recovery. UNCW Recycling is seeking the grant of two acres of land and funding to design and

develop a new recycling facility.

UNCW Recycling’s Mission Statement

UNCW Recycling’s mission is to sustainably capture and reuse waste commodities with the ultimate goal

of eliminating UNCW’s waste bound for landfill. It is our intent to engage the minds, hands, and hearts

of the UNCW university community to design, construct, and operate sustainable enterprises in the

attempt to realize this mission.

UNCW Recycling

UNCW Recycling was started in 1989 to help the university meet the waste reduction goals set by the

Solid Waste Management Act of 1989. That act required each state agency to implement a plan, with a

coordinator, to reduce waste by 25% by 1993. The act went further to require institutions to “prohibit

non-conforming disposal of disallowed materials” which made it illegal to dispose of certain items in

North Carolina landfills. Since that time Recycling has operated primarily as a service by various

departments under Business Affairs. Due to the market for and economics of recovered materials, it

was run as a cost center with salaries, the equipment and much of the material disposal costs being paid

for by the university. In 2010, Business Applications was given the new charge of managing this

function. An analysis of the operations revealed that the maturation of the recyclables market allowed

for the opportunity to realize revenue from already collected recyclables. Additionally, it was

discovered that electronic waste was a new valued commodity that could be captured from the waste

stream. This increase in revenue could be used to offset more costs. In January of 2012, UNCW

Recycling entered into an agreement with Synergy Recycling to purchase these commodities. UNCW

Recycling, working in conjunction with the NC State Surplus Property, developed a system to recycle the

university’s low value end-of-life electronics, thus avoiding the bid or other disposal processes and the

eventuality of the former state property entering the waste stream.

In spring of 2012, UNCW’s electronic recycling program “E-Cycle” was introduced to the students with

the desire to roll this program out to the greater community as soon as reasonable mechanisms could

be put in place to handle the anticipated increase in volume.

It is the goal of UNCW Recycling to efficiently and sustainably capture as much and as many valuable

recyclable commodities as feasible from the campus waste stream, continually increasing revenue

streams and reducing landfill bound waste and associated costs. Additionally, where economically

beneficial, UNCW Recycling would like to offer some recycling programs to the surrounding community.

To effectively accomplish this goal, UNCW recycling needs to have a new facility for a depot specifically

designed to maximize the efforts of a limited staff to process increasing volumes of these commodities.

This site should include the infrastructure and contiguous space for expansion of existing enterprises

and the addition of new endeavors, and provide easy 24 hour access for community drop-off. UNCW

Recycling is asking for a commitment of roughly 2 acres of university property on which to design and

build the depot with additional space for future expansion and funding to develop this facility.

Recycling Benefits

From a cost reduction/profit generation standpoint, each ton of material captured and excluded from

the waste stream saves the university approximately $60 in direct transportation and disposal costs. As

an example, that same ton of cardboard, recycled and sold as a commodity, currently produces gross

revenue of approximately $85. Combined gross savings and profit for recycling a ton of cardboard at the

current rate is $135. That number is currently around $160 per ton for baled PET plastic containers.

Reuse of these materials not only reduces strain on landfills but inherently saves energy and the

environment. According to Alcoa, recycling an aluminum can saves 95 percent of the energy required

to make the same amount of aluminum from virgin materials. Additional benefits include the reduction

of strip mining which is primarily used to acquire the raw bauxite ore. According to The Association of

Post-Consumer Plastic Recyclers it takes 84% less energy to produce plastic from recycled PET flake and

reduces the direct use of petrochemicals in the manufacture of new plastic. According to Waste

Management, cardboard recycling saves 24% of the total energy to produce virgin cardboard and

reduces the need for deforestation to produce new raw materials.

Electronic waste can contain mercury, lead, cadmium, poly-brominates, barium, lithium, and polyvinyl

chloride. The health effects of these toxins on humans include birth defects and brain, heart, liver,

kidney, and skeletal system damage. These materials can significantly affect the nervous and

reproductive systems of the human body. Recycling eliminates the toxic wastes and allows the

recapture of these and other materials for use in producing new products.

At this time, North Carolina State law bans PET bottles, aluminum cans, batteries, wooden pallets,

televisions, and computer equipment from landfills. Despite this ban, it is estimated by the NC

Department of Natural Resources, that North Carolinians still throw away more than $74,072,000 in

aluminum cans on an annual basis.

Recycling is an entrepreneurial method by which the university can protect and be a steward of the

coastal environment, preserve funds, conserve natural resources, grow green jobs, engage the

university and community, provide a positive image and role model, and be in compliance with state

law. UNCW Recycling works to capture all these items and in most cases is able to monetize them as

commodities which provide the raw materials for employment in the green sector of the economy.

An innovative initiative UNCW recycling would like to explore is to allow community business to gift

their cardboard to the university. We could engage students of the Cameron School of Business to

perform market analysis and business development. It is Recycling’s supposition that many local

businesses capture cardboard, but have to pay for its disposal. The relatively high value of baled

cardboard would allow UNCW Recycling to advantageously capture and monetize this commodity with

the profit used as a gift to the university. UNCW could receive the cardboard on campus without fee;

reducing the originators’ cost of disposal. Once processed, UNCW Recycling would report the net profits

of the gifted commodity, allowing the originator to leverage the possible tax advantages and marketing

opportunities. We would solicit business close to campus, initially, to gauge the market and maximize

the ecological impact. If volumes were present to meet or surpass our processing capacity, then

Recycling would develop a waiting list, and, as capacity increased, take new donors on a first-come-first-

serve basis. While we can pilot this program at our existing facilities, it will be difficult to expand or

maximize this program without developing a new facility.

UNCW Recycling’s E-Cycle program also offers revenue growth potential and, importantly, the ability to

provide a much needed public service. According to the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), in

2008, Americans owned approximately 24 electronic products per household. The Environmental

Protection Agency estimated that 438 million electronic products were sold in 2009 which represented a

doubling of sales from 1997, driven by a nine-fold increase in mobile device sales. Further, of the 2.37

million tons of electronics that reached end-of-life only 25% were being recycled.

Growth and Market Analysis

Based on our analysis of the waste stream in 2011, which was the most successful year, Recycling was

only diverting roughly 30% of the current waste stream from the landfill. Based on the historic data over

the past 5 years, Recycling has generally shown an annual growth of around 3%. This rate of growth

occurred before a reasonable market for these commodities could be established and there was little

incentive to grow this program. While not everything in the remaining waste stream may be currently

recyclable commodities, there is still room for significant growth through consumer education and

efficiencies in resource capture. Just this past year, UNCW Facilities implemented a program in which

they reduced the size of office garbage cans and provided larger recycle containers in three

administrative and five academic buildings. The net effect was that recycling output from those

buildings nearly doubled. The full rollout of this program is scheduled to be completed by mid-summer

2012. As part of this program, janitorial staff will be reduced by encouraging recycling, cutting back on

service by limiting the number of weekly office cleanings, and by office occupants being responsible for

transporting their recycling from their offices to collection points within the buildings. This program

reduces the need for, and the cost associated with, janitorial staffing, but will cause some portion of the

workload to be transferred to the Recycling staff. Additionally, due to its emphasis on recycling, the

expansion of this program is expected to create a significant uptick in recyclables captured from

university buildings.

UNCW has been working with Aramark to divert cardboard for several years. Although the cardboard

has been removed from the waste stream, Waste Industries still collected fees for both disposal and

resell of this cardboard. UNCW Recycling was just awarded a matching grant in February 2012 from the

North Carolina Department of Natural Resources to purchase cardboard receptacles to allow us, in

cooperation with our food service partner Aramark, to replace Waste Industries and capture this

estimated 200 tons of cardboard annually, providing an additional estimated $29,000 in gross revenue

and cost reduction from unrealized disposal fees.

Given the environment of increasing interest in sustainability, improved methods of capture, changes

in janitorial support, new streams such as E-Waste, and overall growth in the university, UNCW recycling

anticipates growth greater than the approximately 3% annual historical rate in traditional recyclable

commodities.

Projected Gross Revenues UNCW Recycling Fiscal 2012-2013

Commodity

Estimated

Tons/Month

Market Rate

per Ton Gross Revenue

Est. disposal

Savings @

$60/Ton

Gross

Revenue &

Savings

Paper 11.00 $80.00 $880.00 $660.00

Cardboard 4.23 $85.00 $359.55 $253.80

Cardboard Aramark 16.70 $85.00 $1,419.50 $1,002.00

Plastic baled 0.50 $100.00 $50.00 $30.00

Aluminum 0.44 $1,000.00 $440.00 $26.40

State Surplus 1.00 $60.00

Computer equipment 0.30 $280.00 $79.80 $18.00

Scrap Metal 1.70 $220.00 $355.30 $102.00

Total Month $3,584.15 $2,152.20 $5,736.35

Total Year $43,009.80 $25,826.40 $68,836.20

21.3

26.3

18.6

29.0

32.2

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

2006-2007 2007-2008 2008-2009 2009-2010 2010-2011

Percent of waste recycled or removed from the waste stream

Currently, Aramark’s cardboard is still being disposed of by Waste Industries, but UNCW Recycling hopes

to completely capture that stream by 2013. Otherwise, all recycled commodities, except batteries

which are captured by campus safety, should be captured by UNCW recycling. Offsite disposal of

cardboard consists of Waste Industries and several smaller haulers and recycling companies including

Coastal Ladies Carting, Go Eco Disposal, Green Coast Recycling, which all offer disposal as a paid service.

We believe a cardboard donation model could capture a significant revenue stream by allowing

companies to not only reduce their costs but to leverage the marketing and tax advantages this method

provides.

Electronic recycling in the community is limited but improving. On April 27, 2012 the city of Wilmington

started an electronics recycling program for individuals on Wednesdays between 9AM and 2PM only at

the Landfill location, which is approximately 22 miles from the campus, and is limited to four items per

week. Staples started a recycling program in April of 2012, joining Best Buy as one of the local

businesses offering free electronics recycling. There are also private sector resale and donation options

for some electronics, but this is generally limited to newer electronics which still retain usability and

value. Eventually all electronics will reach end-of-life and need to be recycled. Offering this service to

the university community offers a local convenience and opportunity for our faculty, staff, and students

to responsibly and legally dispose of these items and allows the university to capture this commodity for

resale. UNCW recycling would like, at some point in the future, to provide this service to the

surrounding community. The recycling program still needs time to develop and analyze the impact of

the on-campus program to help estimate the impact on staffing, process, and facilities prior to

undertaking such an expansion. It is our belief that the price achievable for these commodities will

increase slowly over time as the market and infrastructure for recycled materials expands and as

retrieving raw materials from the environment faces increasingly negative public opinion and more

stringent environmental regulation.

Annual Projected Gross Growth Sales and Disposal Cost Reduction

Years 3.00% 3.50% 4.00% 4.50% 5.00% 5.50%

2013-2014 $70,901.29 $71,245.47 $71,589.65 $71,933.83 $72,278.01 $72,622.19

2015-2016 $73,028.32 $73,739.06 $74,453.23 $75,170.85 $75,891.91 $76,616.41

2016-2017 $75,219.17 $76,319.93 $77,431.36 $78,553.54 $79,686.51 $80,830.31

2017-2018 $77,475.75 $78,991.12 $80,528.62 $82,088.45 $83,670.83 $85,275.98

While UNCW Recycling seeks to monetize sales on recyclables, its primary mission is to capture for

reuse. Some commodities, such as glass and CRT televisions and monitors, which are captured as part of

the recycling program, do not produce positive revenue. Due to the still limited markets, their weight,

and the distances required to transport to market, there is no current opportunity to achieve profit from

the collection and recycling of these materials. The recycling program incurs some incidental cost by

processing and transporting these items. Recycling these items however does provide value by reducing

disposal costs and eliminating the items from the waste stream.

UNCW Recycling Growth and Future

UNCW Recycling is continually looking for ways to reduce waste sustainably. With a large amount of

food waste generated by multiple food venues and yard waste generated by campus landscaping, there

are many exciting opportunities for reusing and reducing UNCW’s organic waste. Examples of

technologies for consideration would include in-vessel composting to turn waste into valuable compost,

vermicomposting using worms to speed up composting which has the potential to produce valuable

castings and compost, anaerobic digestion to produce bio fertilizer and methane for power generation,

and gasification using bio-fuel reactors that elementally breaks down waste to produce syngas for

carbon neutral electricity generation. UNCW Recycling would like to become a cross-discipline learning

laboratory for the university and partner in research and development for these types of technologies.

Instructional Opportunities

While there are opportunities for education within the existing framework of recycling, especially in

business development and marketing of programs such as the aforementioned cardboard gift program,

we believe there is massive potential for cross-disciplinary learning in funding, developing, designing,

constructing, operating, and building sustainable businesses around technologies for organic waste

disposal. Vermicomposting has little or no mid- to large-scale development in this country and

technologies such as composting, anaerobic digestion, and gasification are all in their infancies in

regards to their application to the reuse and reduction of waste. UNCW has a massive resource in

experts with knowledge and vision along with student energy and enthusiasm which could be harnessed

to develop these types of technologies. Partnerships with Cape Fear Community College could be

developed to provide cross-pollination of ideas and to help provide engineering and hands-on

construction to develop these technologies from ground up, small-scale proof-of-concept to larger-scale

operating models. UNCW Recycling sees this as an opportunity to be a living laboratory to use, develop,

and learn about these types of solutions, providing our students with invaluable first-hand knowledge in

cutting-edge green and sustainable industries.

Alternative Funding Opportunities

UNCW Recycling is working with the Office of Research Services to identify future grant funding

opportunities in recycling, carbon reduction, and renewable energy. Recycling is actively involved in

developing ongoing funding models for sustainable initiatives through the implementation of the Green

Initiative fund. The future capture and use of organic waste offers the opportunity to develop and sell

carbon offsets, and any power generation realized by using organic waste could also generate income

from Renewable Energy Certificates.

Existing Recycling Facilities

UNCW Recycling’s current location

Recycling’s current storage and processing operations are housed in a shed which is part of the

warehouse complex. This facility is located inside a fence and is only accessible from 8AM to 5PM

Monday through Friday.

Existing UNCW Recycling public receiving facilities

Recycling Depot Location Options

UNCW Recycling would like to offer three sites for consideration for locating a new recycling facility and

depot.

Site A offers the ability to include green buffers on all sides of the site. It has public access for

community access via Rose Avenue, but large trucks would have to traverse the campus to reach this

site. This site would keep Recycling as part of the contiguous campus.

Site B offers reasonable buffering from west and north abutting residential areas. Since the site is not

part of the contiguous campus, it falls into a separate city zone. The site is zoned Regional Business

Conditional use (RB-CD) which does not by Right explicitly permit recycling facilities. Placing the facility

and depot there may require a special use permit. This site would provide superior access for large

transport trucks and the community via South College Road, keeping that traffic off campus but would

require university recycling trucks to cross South College as part of their on-campus collection process.

Site C offers advantages of site A and site B by having excellent access from South College Road while

remaining on the contiguous campus property. Concerns include the close proximity to the existing

retention pond and the general location in regards to other development cited on the University Master

Plan.

Phase 1: Site Selection and Designation

In phase 1, a roughly 2 acre site would be designated as the home for a new recycling facility and depot.

Phase 2: Design and Planning

Phase 2 would involve achieving funding to design a publicly accessible depot and processing facility to

efficiently process, bale, and ship captured recyclables. This process would involve site visits to other

universities and private concerns to gain understanding of successful processes. Also, this process

would involve planning for infrastructure to support current and future planned operations. The initial

facility footprint is expected to be contained in less than an acre. The remaining area would also be

encompassed in the plan in anticipation of future uses. It is anticipated that planning will require

approximately $35,000.

Phase 3: Construction

Phase 3 includes construction of a publicly accessible drop-off/receiving depot, processing facilities, and

offices for the recycling program along with possible multiuse space for future use as a multidisciplinary

instruction and laboratory area. It is Recycling’s intent to use green building methods with passive and

active solar to be as self-sustainable as possible. It is also intended that infrastructure will be installed

for future waste reduction enterprises.

Phase 4: Move-in and Operation

Phase 4 would involve the moving of equipment and personnel and transition of operations from the

existing location to the new site.

Outcomes and Assessment

UNCW Recycling expects growth in material capture on-campus to exceed 3% year-to-year historical

growth over the next 5 years. At some point, over the next few years, with better programs, access,

education, and engagement we hope to reach the point where we capture all the currently recyclable

commodities. At that point, growth in commodity capture will be limited by growth in the university.

This would be a great success, but would not address our greater ambitions for expansion of

reclamation and reuse from the waste stream and community engagement. Our hope is to have

facilities and space to explore methods of engaging the university and community more directly with

better access for e-waste and cardboard. Recycling sees these types of programs as the areas for growth

that can develop into a sustainable business of the university. With the new depot and processing area,

we expect to expand and develop these and other near term programs while maintaining a limited staff.

Growing and developing long term projects for organic waste reduction cannot take place in the

confines of the existing facilities. The success of this project in the short term can be determined by

continued reduction in waste and associated costs, increase in revenues from increased sale of collected

materials, and limited growth in staff resources. Further and longer term success can be judged by the

development of learning opportunities, partnerships, and community engagement.

Conclusion

UNCW has a commitment to the public to develop and disseminate knowledge, which is its primary

mission, but also provide leadership by protecting the resources of the people both natural and

financial. We have been challenged by our chancellor to continue to expand exploration and learning in

the face of shrinking governmental support and rising costs. He has also encouraged us to find ways to

generate revenue, preserve the environment, and engage with students and the community. UNCW

Recycling has the opportunity to meet the Chancellor’s challenges and help UNCW fulfill its commitment

to the public. To fully realize that potential, Recycling must be able to expand and must have a larger,

well-designed facility.