Waste and Recycling

Do you struggle with knowing where to properly dispose of your waste?
Are you interested in reducing the amount of waste that ends up in landfills?

Check out the Carleton Waste Wizard!
It’s a digital tool that provides an easy way to search for proper disposal methods for anything, including where to drop it off or if it can be recycled.

Carleton University is committed to increasing waste diversion in all its operations. The university has implemented an extensive waste reduction and recycling program that includes 4-stream recycling stations, waste diversion walls, construction and demolition waste diversion, donation bins, reuse and recycling hub, and electronic waste collection.

There are currently two Zero-Waste locations on campus: the Food Court and the caf.
These facilities have achieved ‘Zero-Waste’ status by diverting over 90% of all waste generated from landfills.

Carleton University has started the process of removing individual personal office bins from some workspaces and encouraging occupants to use the centralised four-stream waste stations instead. This small act has significant benefits for the campus in many ways:

• Increases recycling and reduces waste going to landfill
• Reduces the risk for contamination of waste streams
• Increases individual responsibility for waste generated
• Reduces the need for under-desk bin liners

The central waste and recycling stations allow staff, faculty, and students to better sort their waste, including paper, mixed plastic recycling, organic/green waste, and landfill waste. Recent waste audits have shown that more than 70% of the landfill waste generated on campus could be diverted to recycling or compost, making this change an important step in achieving a zero-waste campus.

The Reuse and Recycling Hub is located in the Nideyinan Building (1st Floor) is intended as a central location for the reuse or recycling of several campus items including e-waste (see below). The hub includes:

• Printer and Cartridge Recycling – All desktop printer cartridges are accepted.
• Textbooks – All textbooks, published in the last 15 years are accepted.
• Batteries – Batteries accepted list can be found here.
• Markers and Pens – All spent markers and pens are accepted.
• E-Waste – Accepted e-waste items can be found here. (See also below).

You can find out how to responsibly recycle on campus by using Carleton’s Waste Wizard tool at the top of this page or by referring to our Waste Management Guide.

Additionally, you can also check out the City of Ottawa’s Waste Explorer for more information.

Electronic waste (e-waste) is one of the biggest environmental challenges of our time. E-waste includes old, broken, or obsolete items such as computer monitors, keyboards, printers, and projectors. It is the fastest-growing source of waste in North America and can be harmful to the environment when landfilled due to substances such as cadmium, lead, and nickel leaching into soil and water sources.

To address this issue, Carleton University offers several e-waste recycling programs for all community members to recycle their computers, monitors, and electronic accessories responsibly.

Electrobac Stations

You can recycle small electronic devices such as cell phones, tablets, cameras, chargers, headphones in the Electrobac bin. However, please note that these bins do not accept ink cartridges, batteries, light bulbs, VHS tapes, or cassettes.

These bins are located at:

• Nideyinan, 4th Floor 
  
• Teraanga Commons, 1st Floor
  

E-Waste Recycling Program

Carleton University offers an E-waste Recycling Program that provides environmentally friendly and secure disposal of e-waste, free of charge, at several locations on campus. Please take a look at this list of Carleton’s accepted e-waste items list.

Campus community members (staff, faculty and students) can drop off their e-waste at the following locations:
117 Maintenance Building (Stores)
1251 Herzberg Building (Hardware Services)
118 Steacie Building (Science Stores)

If you have any post-secondary textbooks published in the last 15 years that you no longer need, you can drop them off at our Textbooks for Change drop boxes on campus. Textbooks for Change is an organization that strives to provide affordable and accessible educational materials to students both locally and abroad. They ensure that every textbook donated is either reused or recycled, which is an excellent way to minimize your environmental impact.

Find a donation box on campus near you:

• Teraanga Commons, 2nd Floor
  
• Nideyinan, 4th Floor
  
• MacOdrum Library, 1st & 4th Floor
  

Save money and a cup by bringing your reusable travel mug every time you purchase a drink.
Starting again Fall 2023.

The Lug-A-Mug program provides customers discounts for bringing their reusable travel mugs to the following locations:

• 50 cents off at Tunnel Junction & Loeb Café

This fall, Sustainability Carleton launched the university’s first writing instrument recycling program. By diverting used writing utensils from landfill, we move one step closer to achieving our goal of becoming a zero-waste university. Participating in the pilot program is simple. If you have any writing instruments that can no longer be used, please refrain from throwing them away. Instead, locate the nearest writing instrument drop-off box and deposit them there.

During the pilot – boxes are located in the Architecture Building and MacOdrum Library.

Accepted items include:
– Mechanical pencils
– Pens and pen caps
– Highlighters and highlighter caps
– Markers (including dry-erase and permanent) and marker caps

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