“Where does it all go?”: Recycling & Waste Sorting Tips
- Green Office
- Nov 16
- 6 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
The Campus & Operations team explain how the UvA's waste recycling system works and how you can make best use of it.
Credit: University of Amsterdam | www.uva.nl
Picture this: You just finished your lunch at the cafeteria, and now you’re standing in front of
the bins, holding a half-empty coffee cup, a sandwich wrapper, and a banana peel. You
hesitate—where does it all go? Does this count as plastic? Is this compostable? Oh well, you toss everything into one bin and walk away.
Sound familiar?
You’re not alone. Waste sorting can be confusing, but it is incredibly important. Doing it right
means reducing pollution, cutting down on harmful greenhouse gases, and making recycling more effective. Doing it wrong? Well, it can mess up the whole process.
Improving our recycling system requires a clearer explanation of, for instance, what organic waste is and how we should properly separate the items we are disposing of. On a separate note, long-term solutions should include a transition to reusable utensils instead of disposables, something already partially implemented with the coffee cups at the University of Amsterdam (UvA).
At the UvA, we have a system in place to separate waste into four categories - organic, plastic, paper, and residual waste - to make sure as little as possible ends up in landfills. This article will guide you in making sense of the sorting process, so you’ll never have to second-guess where your trash belongs. Spoiler: It’s easier than you think, and small changes in your habits can make a big difference. Furthermore, authors such as Cho (2019) have demonstrated that if we take some time to understand the recycling process, it will boost our confidence in participating successfully, which in turn will increase our motivation to continue this practice (Cho, 2019).
Let’s break it down! Waste separation at UvA is split into four receptacles. It is important to
separate waste correctly so that the total waste sent to landfills is kept minimum!
First up is organic waste. Anything that once came from a plant or an animal is biodegradable. Think fruit peels, nut shells, and that sad, forgotten sandwich you left in your bag for a week (gross, but still organic). It is important to recycle this waste properly, so it is not dumped in landfills. Organic waste in landfills releases methane, which is 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide in terms of greenhouse gas emissions (City of Signal Hill, 2016). Recycling this kind of waste also has benefits for the environment, as it could enrich soils as a fertilizer (City of Signal Hill, 2016). There are several kinds of organic waste, including food, food-soiled paper, unpainted and untreated wood, and green waste such as leaves or branches. In the student context, this means that paper packaging without plastic components would be preferable for recycling as it would qualify as organic (ibid). Beyond that, tea and coffee waste, such as tea bags, are also considered organic. But here’s the catch: packaging is a huge problem. Most food containers in the cafeteria are a mix of paper and plastic, and students often assume that if it looks like paper, it belongs in the organic bin. It doesn’t, and unfortunately, this mix-up disrupts the entire recycling process.
Second, residual waste is basically the misfits of the trash world. The stuff that can’t be recycled because it’s too contaminated or made of mixed materials. Think greasy napkins, coffee cups, plastic cutlery, stirrers, bandages, chewing gum, laminated paper, plastic bags, and even metallic odds and ends like aluminum foil and cans. If it doesn’t fit into an organic, plastic, or paper recycling bin, it’s going here. Proper disposal of residual waste is crucial to prevent environmental pollution. Improper waste management can lead to soil and water contamination, posing significant risks to ecosystems and human health (Mahajan, 2023). As mentioned before, organic waste decomposing in landfills releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas contributing to climate change (Mahajan, 2023). Moreover, the incineration of waste, especially plastics and hazardous materials, emits carbon dioxide and other harmful gases, exacerbating global warming and disrupting climate patterns (Mahajan, 2023). To mitigate these impacts, it's essential to minimise residual waste by reducing the use of single-use items and opting for reusable alternatives. When disposal is necessary, ensure that residual waste is placed in the appropriate bins to facilitate proper handling and reduce environmental harm.
Now, onto some tips for sorting the items in the Plastic Packaging and Drink Cartons receptacle. Lucky for us, this category is well-named and more straightforward! It includes items like chip bags, plastic straws, plastic eating utensils, blister packs (from medicine or
gum), and drink cartons (including those with an aluminum inner layer). It also welcomes
hard plastic, like the plastic container from the store that held your grapes, and plastic bottles that held water, juice, soda, etc. (Plastic bottles with the cap screwed on, by the way.) All pretty intuitive. With one exception: Soft, bendable plastic - like the clear plastic bags for pastries - does not belong to this category and should be thrown in the residual waste receptacle!
Now that you know what items belong in this category, you should also know that the items
need to be empty and clean before entering the receptacle. Otherwise, the items in the bin will end up being incinerated instead. Make sure to remove the food or liquid residue from these plastics and drink cartons before tossing them in the receptacle. Crumbs, liquid, and oil remnants disqualify your plastic from the recycling process. In making sure your valuable, carbon-intensive plastic waste is clean, empty, and thus ready for recycling, you help decrease the world’s dependence on fossil fuels, decrease plastic pollution, and protect our amazing wildlife. While our emphasis has been on ensuring the recycling of plastics, we should not forget National Geographic’s report that only 9% of global plastic waste is recycled (Parker, 2024). This is due, in part, to the limits of recycling technology. With this in mind, it becomes clear that reducing plastic use is the best solution to protecting our environment (Nuñez, 2021). The focus on reducing plastic use should have priority over the focus on recycling it. However, this emphasis on ‘reducing’ over ‘reusing or recycling’ should not downplay the important role that recycling plays! In situations when you can’t avoid plastic consumption, your best disposal method is to recycle the plastic. By placing the clean and empty plastic in its designated waste receptacle, we better the odds that our item isrecyclable. Let us prepare and sort out plastics and cartons well, so that we can increase the depressingly low recycling rate!
Last but not least, here is what we should know about the Paper receptacle: Paper recycling contamination is a matter of serious environmental unfriendliness. Many students may reap the satisfaction of correctly disposing of their paper waste in recycling containers, but it only takes one small plastic wrap, greasy paper, or another incorrect item to complicate the recycling process, possibly rendering a 60L bin unrecyclable! Thus, the efforts of every informed student or staff member at UvA may be fruitless if an individual fails to properly recycle their waste, rather than performing ‘aspirational recycling’.
The paper recycling bin is therefore designated only for clean and dry sheets of paper. Cardboard, books, and envelopes, even with plastic windows, are all correctly disposed of in the paper recycling bin. Dirty paper utensils, wrappers, sandwich boxes, and any other grease-traced paper, however, will ultimately contaminate the surrounding recyclable paper. Note that receipts and any other form of thermal paper are not recyclable either, as they contain the endocrine disruptor Bisphenol A (BPA), popularly utilised in the production of plastic.
To ensure the success of our colleagues’ recycling efforts, we, students and staff, must be
informed of the correct distinction between and disposal of materials. We can significantly
reduce our waste contamination with a little awareness and discipline, and perhaps taking a
few minutes to read the above guidelines was already a great start!
References
City of Signal Hill. (2024). What is Organic Waste?
Cho, M. (2019). Campus Sustainability: An Integrated Model of College Students’ Recycling
Behavior on Campus. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education,
20(6), 1042–1060. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijshe-06-2018-0107.
Green Room: Zero Waste Spring Cleaning. The Monarch Press. (2022, May).
Mahajan, R. (2023). Environment and Health Impact of Solid Waste Management in
Developing Countries: A Review. Environmental Sustainability, 6(2), 123-135.
Nuñez, E. (2025, January 10). That plastic Bottle you thought you recycled may have been
“downcycled” instead. Oceana.
Parker, L. (2024, January 22). A whopping 91 percent of plastic isn’t recycled. Education.
