“WHEN OUR STUDENTS GRADUATE ARE THEY LEAVING WITH A HOLISTIC UNDERSTANDING OF SUSTAINABILITY ?”
— Kayla Blok , Manager of Campus Sustainability , Simon Fraser University sent to the landfill . Within 18 months , the initiative was diverting more than 70 % of SFU ’ s landfill waste and had introduced circular economy principles to look at purchasing , and require suppliers to work towards recyclable and compostable packaging . Today , across the campus , there are four-stream waste stations allowing for food and compostables , paper and cardboard , recyclables and landfill garbage . It ’ s not hard to get buy-in these days , with the media full of reminders about things like plastic pollution and extinction rates , but people still need to be helped to understand the circular economy – that is where the Sustainability Office steps in to educate and encourage , affirms Kayla Blok . The team , in conjunction with a large stakeholder group that includes departments across the university , is currently set to launch an initiative to eliminate singleuse plastics and products from all three campuses , making them the first university in Canada to act on this issue .
Research , business expertise , software engineering and the spur of environmental perils have come together in an exciting project that
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