Montclair Collaborates with Sister Institutions on Decarbonization Through Waste Management

Montclair State University’s Office of Sustainability is a sub-awardee of a grant from the NJ Department of Environmental Protection. Led by Rutgers University, the project that the grant funds, Decarbonizing New Jersey Higher Education Institutions with Enhancing Recycling Activities, will help Montclair gain a better understanding of the current waste management practices on campus and issues with waste sent to landfill and recycling.  

The project is a collaboration between Rutgers University, Montclair State University, The New Jersey Institute of Technology, The College of New Jersey, Kean University, Rowan University and WM | Waste Management & Recycling Services. This is an important partnership amongst New Jersey public institutions in waste management practices and will be able to be extrapolated to other institutions of higher education. 

The project’s purpose is to collect baseline data for municipal solid waste and single stream recycling on campus, assess contamination and diversion rates, and provide reliable data for comparison among higher education institutions. SCS Engineers will perform waste audits on each campus, targeting specific building types/uses such as Academic, Residential, Administrative.

Montclair’s audit took place during the week of March 23, 2026. SCS Engineers worked in coordination with staff from the Office of Sustainability and University Facilities to collect samples consisting of 200 pounds of trash and 100 pounds of recycling per building across four days. In total, we collected samples from 13 buildings and the Bloomfield College Campus.

Waste samples will be characterized to study the amount of recyclable or otherwise divertible materials in the waste stream; recycling samples will be characterized to study the amount and type of contamination in the recycling stream. After the completion of data entry, waste and recycling stream compositions will be developed by material category for each building type/use that was sampled, and a report will be generated for the institutions. 

These audits will help our campus decision makers by generating reliable baseline data on the current waste management practices, a waste characterization profile, and will provide recommendations for how to improve our practices. Each institution will use the findings from their report to drive an intensive outreach and education initiative and develop peer-to-peer educational programs with the overall goal of improving our activities towards circularity and decarbonizing through efficient waste management and improved recycling operations.

This is a great opportunity for Montclair to collect baseline data that can be used to not only improve our overall waste management performance, but offer real operational datasets to students, faculty, and staff who may wish to use it as part of their courses, research, or projects. – Adeline Cochran, Assistant Director of Sustainability.

For more information about the audit process, reach out to sustainability@montclair.edu.

This project contributes directly to Facilities Sustainability Plan Goal 02-2: Increase waste diversion from landfill and Goal 03-2: Build partnerships to increase student, faculty, and staff awareness of campus sustainability.

Earth Month Code Word: Waste