IU is working to maximize waste diversion by prioritizing reuse, recycling, and other diversion methods. Our goal is to minimize landfill contributions and build a culture of responsible resource management across the university community.
View all accepted items for recycling at the Bloomington campus
Avoid waste by following the sustainable swag purchasing guide
Be sure your recyclables are empty before you put them in the recycle bin. Items do no need to be rinsed; that they are empty is sufficient. Leave caps on plastic bottles.
Watch how our recyclables are sorted
Items that are commonly but mistakenly placed in the recycle bin are: soft plastics, to-go containers, food, cups with ice/liquid, red party cups, and napkins. These items are not recyclable and should be placed in the trash bin.
See what items our recycling processor accepts
Never place batteries in the recycling or trash bins. Several battery types pose hazardous fire risks during the processing of trash and recycling. Special battery collections exist in many IUB buildings – look for brown or white buckets that are labeled for battery collection.
Learn more about battery disposal
IU Surplus manages the rdistribution and disposal of unneeded university property. Divert unwanted departmental items to Surplus, and shop the Surplus store before buying new.
Visit the Surplus store
Items donated during the move-out season are made available to incoming students, community organizations, and IU programs including the IU Sustainability Lending Library, IU Sustainability Move-In Free Store, 25+ local nonprofits, IU Surplus, and beyond.
Learn about moveout waste diversion
The IU Sustainability Lending Library offers free of charge borrowing for many items including, bikes, carts, tables, event supplies, cameras, craft supplies, and more.
Browse the catalog
IU Landscape Services compost leave little and spent flowers from the beds on campus. The mulched and composted material is then reapplied to the landscape beds as a soil amendment.
Read the full storyYes! Recycling bins are offered across campus and are collected by IU Facilities & Operatios staff before being processed by Rumpke Waste & Recycling. Our recycling program is most successful when campus users learn to sort items properly between the landfill and recycle bins. The goal is to divert all recyclables away from the landfill and minimize the amount of trash that has to be sorted out of the recycling stream. To see how our recyclables are sorted, watch this video.
IU's recycling stream is taken from campus to the Rumpke Bloomington transfer station. At the transfer station, materials are consolidated to minimize travel and are then transported to Rumpke's Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) in Cincinnati, OH. Here the items are sorted into single material feedstocks, e.g., steel, aluminum, cardboard, glass, paper, high density polyethylene, low density polyethylene, etc. Feedstocks are then shipped to regional manufacturers who proceeds the recycled materials into new items.
Before Covid, food waste collected in IU Dining facilities was composted, however the compost processor that served IU has since ceased operations. Our goal is to compost as much organic waste as possible, and we are exploring the possible avenues for resuming IU’s compost program, keeping into consideration processor capacity, staffing challenges, cost of service, and contamination in the organic waste stream.
Bottle caps off. And better yet: bottles emptied, crushed, lid reattached. This improves operations at the MRF; crushed bottles are less likely to roll and tumble away from the conveyor belts that separate out plastics.
As custodial staff collect bags from waste receptacles, it may appear that both recycling and trash bags are collected in the same carts. However at IU, bags containing trash are grey or black and bags containing recyclables are clear. This convention allows custodial staff to put each bag in its respective receptable upon final disposal in the dumpster's.
IU Facilities & Operations staff collects both trash and recycling on a daily basis, but on a given route, a driver is only collecting from one stream, either trash or recycling. The exterior of the truck is irrelevant and to what is being collected. A driver may fill up a truck with trash, empty it at the transfer station, and then drive a recycle route with the same truck.
A recycle symbol means the product is recyclable somewhere, but not necessarily at our local recycling center. IU sends its recycling to Rumpke's Material Recovery Facility (MRF) in Cincinnati, OH, where it is sorted and then baled to send to manufacturers who use the product to turn it in to something else. View the items accepted at this MRF.
