Sustainability and Environment Outreach Month: Nativity Recycling Program

01
Apr

The Sustainability and Environment Outreach Team at Nativity recognizes and responds to the need for responsible interaction within our environment. The team will promote local initiatives and actions that create and maintain conditions leading to long term environmental quality. These efforts demonstrate our Biblical call to “Care for Creation” and live sustainably.

We received a (2020) Hennepin county Organic Recycling grant. We now compost food and paper waste (napkins / paper towels) in our dining areas, kitchen, restrooms and classrooms.

This chart shows the net benefit in terms of organic waste diverted from the Trash stream. Although 2020 didn’t have the same volume of trash because less people were in the building due to COVID restrictions, we can see that 420 lb/month, or 23% of the trash stream is now being composted.

Diverting that amount of trash has allowed Nativity to reduce the size of our Trash bin and reduce the frequency of trash pickup from weekly to every 2 weeks. This reduction in Trash hauling fees is approximately the same as the increased cost in the new compost bin and hauling fees.

From an environmental perspective, we are removing 5,000 lbs. of food waste from the landfill (annually), which prevents the generation of 13.72 metric tons of CO2.

Are you interested in learning more or joining the Sustainability and Environment Outreach team? Contact Donna Steinwand at donnasteinwand95@gmail.com or Lona Doolan at mill0682@umn.edu.