The Residential Student Service Programs (RSSP) team partners with organizations across campus to meet sustainability targets, including Zero Waste by 2020 and beyond, Path to Zero Carbon by 2045 and 25% sustainable food by 2030.
Housing and Dining Sustainability provides student-led advocacy, environmental initiatives, auditing, and peer education on sustainability to work towards ethical and environmentally sound practices within the housing and dining infrastructure.
Waste sorting guide
UC Berkeley has a goal to divert 90% of its municipal solid waste from landfills to be recycled, composted, or reused. As a resident, you can help our campus achieve this goal by sorting your waste properly!
To start, be sure to find the trash room or trash enclosure for your building where you’ll be emptying your room’s compost, recycling, and landfill bins. Please respect community spaces by helping keep trash rooms clean and not disposing of room trash in bathrooms. Be considerate of custodial staff!
Compost is for material like food scraps, food-soiled paper products, and compostable plastics (#7 PLA). By diverting this waste from landfills, you help turn your waste into nutrient-rich soil.
Cans and bottles recycling is for glass, steel, and aluminum cans, and #1 and #2 plastics only. Flimsy plastics and plastics #3–6 cannot be recycled, so consider reducing the amount of single-use plastics you purchase and opt for reusables like utensil kits, metal water bottles, and tote bags.
Mixed paper recycling is for clean cardboard, junk mail, and scrap paper. Don’t throw your food-soiled waste in this bin! Make sure to break down and flatten your cardboard and paperboard before disposing to ensure that the bins don’t overflow.
Landfill is for all other trash, including #3–#7 plastics, styrofoam, plastic envelopes, food wrappers, and flimsy plastics. Before throwing away unwanted clothing or household items in the landfill, consider donating these items to local donation centers like Goodwill or ReUSE.
Electronics and batteries can be brought to each unit’s front desk for recycling. Feel free to ask the unit front desk any questions you have about where to bring any other waste you generate.
Recycling and reuse are a big part of life on campus. For more details about sustainability and recycling opportunities on campus during move-in and move-out, see the Office of the Chancellor page of resources.
Energy and water conservation
In residence halls
As California continues to experience severe drought conditions, it’s important to do your part to conserve water. Notice a leak in your building? Contact your unit’s front desk immediately.
The residence halls are responsible for 25% of UC Berkeley’s water use. What can you do to conserve water and energy?
- Shorten your shower by 5 minutes to save over 12 gallons of water. If everyone on campus did this for a week, we would save 3 MILLION gallons.
- Turn off the faucet when you brush your teeth or wash your hands, and check all faucets for drips.
- Washing full loads of laundry on cold saves both energy and water.
- Turn off lights and other electronics when not in use. Unplug any cords not being used to charge or power devices.
- Open your windows and use natural light to brighten your room.
- Read about UC Berkeley’s drought response.
If everyone saved one gallon of water a day, weekly campus use could be reduced by 250,000 gallons.