Waste Responsibility and Management. The case of the University of Bologna

The commitment of waste reduction, efficient use of energy and sustainable use of natural resources is one of the major challenges that presently we are facing on. The rate of resources consumption is increasing at a faster rate than population growth, with a consequence of rise in waste production worldwide. There is the need to rethink not only our technological system through the adoption of ecoinnovation, but also to reconsider the entire system of our values through the education of the society in many aspects of our lifestyle. Improving the awareness of the responsibility of our actions is the basis of achieving the ambitious aim of Waste Prevention established in the Waste Hierarchy of the European Waste Framework Directive. Waste prevention is connected to improve manufacturing technologies and to educate people toward greener products preference and waste production responsibility. Due to its educational and institutional role university has a predominant position to address the challenge of education. On the other hand, university has also an important role both as organization where put in practice sustainable operation and as research institution where innovative technologies are developed. Due its complex and multi-faced structure university can help to demonstrate both the theory and practice of waste responsibility. The campus itself can develop a feedback mechanism for the teaching and research practices through taking action and understanding how to reduce the unsustainable impacts of their own activities. University can also be a place where apply an interdisciplinary approach toward a new purpose: become a living laboratory of sustainability through the research, design and showcasing of systems and methods toward greener solutions. With the aim to address the idea of waste responsibility, university has definitely the great opportunity to adopt different approaches, acting simultaneously of institutional, educational and organizational level. In this paper the University of Bologna approach toward waste responsibility is presented and a special focus is given to practical actions and success cases in this field. University of Bologna is complex organization due to its 900 centuries of history and due the quite recent institution of wide-campus structure. In the last 20-25 years University of Bologna has been geographically expanded across the city of Bologna, also creating exurban campuses and finally including the Romagna campus located in the neighboring cities of Rimini, Cesena, Ravenna and Forlì. Since its complex structure, a variety of actors can be involved in the commitment of waste responsibility: from research to academia staff, from governance and administration to the wide community who affect or are affected by the university and its activities. An example are external suppliers of goods and services, for whom the university may represent a major economic development opportunity; school students and their families, as prospective university students; and finally the local community within which the university is situated. As the variety of community involved, several actions can be crucially practiced at level of university. As shown Table 1 there is the opportunity of embedding the concept of waste responsibility at several levels. Level Waste responsibility actions and themes Research Ecodesign, Green or Clean technologies, Recycling processes, Recovery processes, Urban mining, AGGIUNGERE ALTRI TEMI DI RICERCA Education INSERIRE Governance and administration Sustainability policies, environmental management plans and systems, environmental auditing, recruitment and staff development, green procurement, waste management system Wide University Community Separate collection system Green products and local food purchase within university An essential tool for defining the commitment of university toward sustainability and also toward waste responsibility, is the sustainability plan. Since the 2009, University of Bologna has implemented a sustainability plan for communicating its purposes and issues such as energy efficiency, renewable sources shifting, sustainable mobility and of course waste management. In the sustainability plan, the actions and the measures are fixed at wide-campus level and also at single-campus level with three-year objectives. Concerning the waste management aspects, University of Bologna has introduced several initiatives based on the different kind of waste. An example is the introduction of a separate collection system, initially located only in some small campuses, but now spreading in the all wide-campus. In some specific cases the separate collection system is realized by the kerbside (raccolta porta a porta) collection, an example is the case of university buildings located within the Bologna city center. The result is an important increase of the percentage of separate waste. Another significant action concerns the management of electrical and electronic equipment waste. The University of Bologna has implemented a centralized management system for this kind of waste, especially for the management of the Informatics Electric and Electronic Equipment Waste (IWEEE), allowing also a recovery for this waste. Through the involvement of student associations, a trashware activity has permitted the recovery and the preparation for re-use of IWEEE. Finally another action in the field of waste is the realization of a compost plant for the University Botanic Garden. INSERIRE ALCUNI DATI QUANITATIVI From these considerations it can be said that university plays an essential role for the improvement of waste responsibility. In fact university as institutional and educational organization can have the double role of waste producer and also waste consumer. The implementation of specific measures and actions aimed at waste recovery and reduction contributes to create a place where realizing virtuous operations and recognizing the importance of waste as a resource to be fed back into the economy. In addition through specific courses, laboratories and internships university can provide future generation with knowledge and awareness for creating a new model of life. In conclusion university can lead society toward zero-waste production and consumption system.