Recycling at Quinnipiac University is not as efficient as some would hope due to the university’s use of single-stream recycling.
In 2012, Quinnipiac, along with Yale University, transitioned to single-stream recycling, leaving multi-stream recycling behind. Single-stream recycling means that all recyclable materials go in one bin rather than being separated into multiple bins, like a paper bin and a plastic bin, for example. Workers separate the materials once they reach a material recovery facility with a combination of mechanical and manual sorting methods.
“Single-stream recycling has made us more successful by making recycling more convenient and accessible,” Keith Woodward, associate vice president for facilities operations, wrote in a statement to The Chronicle.
Woodward says that participation rates in recycling have increased because students and faculty no longer need to sort materials themselves, simplifying recycling in residence halls, offices and public spaces.
“There are obviously some operational efficiencies; Fewer collection trucks and bins are needed, lowering transportation and labor costs and (allowing) custodial or facilities staff to collect recyclables quicker,” he said.
Quinnipiac partners with All American Waste to collect the university’s recyclables. Our recycling material is brought to their Material Recovery Facility (MRF) in Berlin, Connecticut, where it goes through an automated separation process.
“On paper, it’s a great concept. It makes it easy for anyone to recycle,” said Students for Environmental Action Event Coordinator Timothy Hine, a senior environmental studies and biology co-major.
“But the problem is that you have so many different things going into one container. It’s just bound to lead to contamination between all sorts of different products…it’s just not particularly profitable,” Hine said.
Quinnipiac is not unique, as a majority of recycling programs in the U.S. are now single-stream. According to a survey conducted by the American Forest and Paper Association, between 2005 and 2014, these programs went from covering 29% of American communities to 80%. The popularity of single-stream has led to increased participation in recycling, but has also led to increased contamination.
Contamination occurs when non-recyclable items and garbage are mixed in with recyclable ones, making sorting more difficult and possibly causing the whole container of materials to be sent to the landfill. Contamination makes around 15-25% of recyclables unusable.
Excess food or liquid, hazardous materials such as batteries, diapers, or paint and plastic bags are all common contaminants. According to Hine, a pizza box is a good example of a usual contaminant.
“It’s covered in grease, and that’s just going to lead to it being unable to be recycled because it has food waste soaked into it,” Hine said.
Broken glass is also a contaminant, which is hard to sort out when all recyclables are thrown into one container and then tossed around and compacted in trucks.
Some college campuses that use single-stream recycling have programs to encourage the separate collection of bottles by students.
It’s easier to avoid contamination if “you have just one sort of product that you have to take care of and it would be way more profitable for you, because everyone knows, there’s a boatload of bottles,” Hine said.
Previously, Quinnipiac had such a program, partnering with the EyeRecycle organization to encourage students to make bottle returns.
EyeRecycle provided the university with collection boxes, and then students had to collect the bottles. EyeRecycle picked them up for full redemption value. There were a few cardboard collection boxes placed around campus, including one in the dining hall and one in the gym.
According to Sarah Lawson, an associate professor of biology who was involved with EyeRecycle, the program ended last fall because they weren’t collecting enough bottles to make the process worth it. She said they likely needed more collection centers, more awareness and more student participation.
Hine, who contributed to the bottle collection process during an Earth Week event, agreed.
“I was literally on the verge of tears collecting the bottles…I was so upset because basically nobody brought their bottles, so I’m just not sure if the awareness was there,” Hine said.
Lawson said that bringing back EyeRecycle could be a good idea if we could commit to it.
“If we were really investing in recycling with EyeRecycle, we could recycle almost 100% of our cans and plastic bottles, but would not be able to recycle glass or tin,” she said.
Lawson did stress, however, that single-stream is inefficient but also hard to change, so it might be better to focus on reducing our use of single-use plastics rather than trying to recycle them or change the system.
“As QU becomes more sustainable,” she said, “I would argue that our time and energy is probably better spent on reducing the waste we use, instead of recycling.” She suggested using fewer plastic bottles in the dining hall and encouraging students to eat less red meat to reduce our carbon emissions.
Hine mentioned that another issue Quinnipiac students face when trying to recycle is a lack of depositing sites.
“In addition to indoor bins, we have outdoor collection points, including larger recycling dumpsters strategically placed near residence halls, parking areas and high-traffic locations,” Woodward said. “This ensures that both small daily items and larger recyclable materials can be properly collected and diverted from landfills.”
This is not the case for all students. While everyone has recycling bins in their dorms, there is no larger recycling dumpster in the Hill Circle parking lot, causing most students living in the surrounding dorms to just throw all their recyclables in the trash.
“There are recycling opportunities in the laundry rooms at the Hill and the Village,” Woodward said, but students are either unaware they exist or find them too inconvenient to use.
One student living in The Village Residence halls knew they existed, but thought students were only supposed to use them for the disposal of laundry-related materials, of which there are few.
“I don’t know if we can dump the (recycling) bin in our room into (the laundry) one,” Riley Hahofer, a second-year health science major, said. “I don’t know what one could use that for in the laundry room anyway.”
The recycling bins in The Village Residence halls have bottle and can lids, meaning only one bottle can go into the bin at a time. If students were aware of the recycling bin there, they would have to put their items in one by one. When it comes to dumping out their blue recycling bins, the dumpster is still the closest option.
According to the university’s STARS report, a self-reporting framework for colleges and universities to measure their sustainability performance, submitted on March 1, 2025, Quinnipiac scored a 2.75/8.00 on the Waste Minimization and Diversion category. The report claimed the university was able to divert 20.7% of waste from the landfill by recycling, composting, donating or re-selling it in 2024.
For reference, in 2018, the national recycling rate was 32%, as reported by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The current national goal of the EPA is to increase this rate to 50% by 2030. While Quinnipiac’s 20.7% diversion rate is commendable, it could be higher, and it is still below the national average.
Single-stream recycling, when available, does make it easier for students to contribute to recycling. As evidenced by the struggles of the EyeRecycle program, sorting out different recyclables may lower participation levels and add an additional barrier to recycling.
However, with contamination rates as high as they are, we must confront the inefficiency that comes with our use of single-stream recycling and consider whether the ease is worth it.
